Like a mirror
by BlueMary J. Royard
Summary: Iron Man is dead, Tony Stark is broken and Loki just happens to be in the right place at the right time. What would you do if you found your favorite enemy mute and in chains? Post Avengers, FrostIron
1. Prologue: Dead Hero

**Warnings**: this story contains Aftermath of Torture, Past Torture, PTSD and Graphic Depiction of Violence. I'll add some new warnings in the chapter where they're needed.

**Prologue: Dead hero**

_Iron Man was dead._

_The weakest and most immoral and annoying part of himself was still there, because Tony Stark was still alive, but he was just an empty shell, a former shadow of the brilliant hero who had protected the Earth and advanced single-handed the human technology. He had fallen, defeated by his own arrogance and impotence. And he wasn't worthy anymore._

_A pair of brown eyes opened in a pitch black room, but there weren't any emotions in them._

_Those eyes were empty._

The room was so cold it seemed carved in stone. The only thing in the place delimited by those inhospitable four walls was a bucket for when he needed to relieve himself, because, a part from that, his prison was completely empty: they didn't allow him to have a bed, nor a blanket, and without the clothes the cold was unbearable.

He was sitting on the icy floor, with his knees against his chest, careful non to put his weight on his wounds. The weight of the chains, which bound his wrists together and both his arms with the iron collar on his neck, was becoming too much to endure, so he rest his hands on his knees and sighed.

He was always bound like this when he was in that cellar, and only when the guards decided it was time to hurt him again he was freed from those chains, just to be bound with his hands above his head in the torture chamber. He looked down at his wrists, where there was a red circle, a mix of dried blood and open wound, due to his harsh restraints. He brushed it with his fingers, ignoring the familiar suffering that flared with just a simple touch.

The pain was nothing new to him. It had been part of his life, way before than Afghanistan, it had been his faithful companion in his path as Iron Man and now it was the only sensation that differed from a cold numbness.

He shifted, stifling a groan.

His back was healing, and now he could lay down without biting his lips to suppress a scream. That just meant he was about to be taken to another torture session.

He didn't have any means to know how much time he was spending in his little prison, and truthfully he didn't care, but he could guess that he was being tortured every four or five days. It wasn't a real, unbearable torture, like the one Natasha sometimes had spoken about: just the whipping, the beatings, and the little burns when his captors wanted to play with the cigars on his naked arms and shoulder. It wasn't anything that could harm him in a really grave way, even when they were whipping him, they were careful non to tear his skin too much; they didn't even break one of his bones, they didn't use knives or electricity. And they didn't use the water to hurt him, for which he was oddly grateful, since it was the torture that scared him the most, after his experience in Afghanistan.

He grimaced, thinking about his captor.

It seemed that Johann Schmidt wanted him in pain, but not half dead. Covered in bruises but not utterly broken.

Maybe the Nazi was trying to break his will one wound at a time, not noticing he was already cracked; maybe he wanted to scare him, making him submitted to pain before requesting his help into building some weapon. Maybe Schmidt was simply a sadist who enjoyed torturing an enemy without even coming up with a pretext. He didn't really care; not worth looking for an answer.

Occasionally the routine changed: it was Schmidt himself the one who came to his cell with some guards; instead of taking him to the torture chamber, he guided him to a oddly luxurious part of the building. There, Tony didn't experience pain, just surprise. Sometimes he found himself in the dining room, where he could eat a real meal, with clean plates and cutlery, instead of the frowzy food that was brought in his prison only once a day. Other times Schmidt allowed him to have a shower or to shave, little kindnesses that maybe had the goal to make him speak, but actually let him completely indifferent.

In these occasions, his captor tried to interrogate him about the Avengers, and Steve in particular, and about the Arc Reactor; he offered him a room with a bed, instead of a prison, a real bathroom, instead of the bucket, and some clothes, if Tony answered his questions, all in vain. After seeing that this bargain didn't work, Schmidt tried to begin a conversation about many specific subjects, such as the weather, politic, mythology, just hoping for an answer from a man who was famous because of his inability to shut himself up.

But Tony never talked, not even once.

During the tortures he screamed, cried, whimpered for the pain. But his voice had expired with a last curse, yelled like it was a supplication, with his own blood that was suffocating him and the blood of his arrogance's victims that clouded his vision. And it didn't make sense, it wasn't _fair_ that he was still alive.

While the world was wondering where Iron Man was, while the Avengers were looking for their lost companion, while Fury and the S.H.I.E.L.D. were preparing to face a new threat without their most suitable man, Tony Stark closed his eyes and let the weariness and the pain win over his conscience.


	2. Chapter 1: Falling

**Author's note: **I really want to thank cara-tanaka/Sara and Margaret (I hope you'll like this update) for the lovely comments. Also, special thanks go to Sara and her amazing job as my beta. Thank you very much!

**Warning:** Mild torture and violence.

**Chapter 1: Falling**

_Some unidentified terrorists had assaulted a little research facility in New Mexico. Nothing extraordinary or particularly interesting, if Tony hadn't notice that Fury was irritated – well, more irritated than he usually was. Still, it was suspicious, so he had told Jarvis to hack the S.H.I.E.L.D.'s server, a piece of cake for his AI. It had taken less than thirty minutes to discover why the spy was so upset: in that facility, thanks to the old data, they were trying to replicate something similar to the Tesseract._

_That, for Tony, had sealed the deal, so he was participating in the mission without complaining._

_His orders – not that he would have followed them to the letter – were clear: to capture or to kill the terrorists, to save the scientists, if they were still alive, and to try to preserve the data. Just a routine job, for Iron Man._

_And now he was flying at maximum speed in the light blue sky of New Mexico, enjoying the euphoric sensation of being completely free. Even after years, he still loved being in his suit. It was as though Iron Man was his real identity, the suit his own body. If only it were a little more comfortable, he would sleep in it, and not because of what Clint's dirty mind had suggested in several occasions._

"_Stark, be careful, we still don't know the entirety of the enemy's forces." an annoying but familiar voice interrupted his thoughts._

"_Don't worry, Nick, I'll leave some weak soldiers for your agents, so you won't feel completely useless." He closed the communication before letting Fury finish one of his usual offenses, then he switched frequency. "Nat, Legolas, where are you?"_

"_We'll be here in an hour, maybe sooner." the archer replied._

_In his visor, Tony saw that his goal was just a few miles away._

"_Bring champagne and the cake, then, because you'll arrive just in time to celebrate my triumph."_

_He closed the communication and, in a couple of minutes, he reached his destination. There were eighteen armed men on the outside and Jarvis localized twenty more, between terrorists and hostages, on the inside. Alone against almost forty people, then, but enemies' number didn't matter if you were Iron Man. Without hesitation, Tony landed in front of the soldiers in his classic Iron Man position. The surprised terrorists didn't even reacted before he aimed at them with both his hand, smiling inside his helmet._

"_Just to be clear, you're all my prisoners. Now put the guns down and kneel with the hands behind your head, like good little terrorists."_

_As always, the criminals were moronically predictable: they aimed at him with the rifles and guns, preparing to shoot. And Tony shot faster. Two seconds later, all the terrorists were dead, shot down before they could alert their companions. Now he just had to deal with the remaining criminals._

_Once he entered the facility and reached the underground level, he froze. Not because of the hostages, little children with tears on their terrified faces, nor because of the dead bodies of the scientists all around them. He froze because the terrorist who seemed in charge and now was staring at him with a cold smile was awfully familiar._

_Jarvis confirmed his suspicions, silently identifying the man in the visor. In front of him stood Johann Schmidt, Cap's nemesis, Hitler's supporter for opportunism and a full-time son of a bitch._

"_You're that guy with the serious tanning issue, aren't you?" Tony asked, wondering how the Nazi could have found a mask identical to the one he wore during World War II._

_Schmidt didn't even try to reach for his gun, he just continued staring at him._

"_And you must be Iron Man."_

_Tony smiled, allowing Jarvis to send the video and audio feed to Fury and the other Avengers, so they would be informed of who the enemy was this time._

"_Still smart, despite your age." He aimed at the terrorist, a shot to kill or at least to gravely injured someone more powerful than a normal human being. "I thought our good old boy-scout had freed the Earth from nazi scum like you, but it seems this pleasure will be mine instead."_

_Schmidt smiled back, pointing at the soldiers around him._

"_Not so fast, if you don't want some collateral damage"_

_Tony clenched his jaw. He didn't like his voice, the way the Nazi had spoken remind him too much of Obadiah and he still could feel the wounds his betrayal had left in his heart – literally in his heart, since some days the Arc Reactor seemed far too heavy for his chest._

_In front of his eyes there were ten kneeling hostages, all children, because S.H.I.E.L.D.'s morons had built the underground lab near a school. Tony shifted his attention back to Schmidt; the Nazi possessed superhuman abilities, maybe he was as strong as Steve, but the other terrorists were normal people and he, as Iron Man, was faster and stronger than all of them combine. He faked his surrender in the same way he had done in Gulmira, dropping his hands._

"_Jarvis, are you ready to get rid of the bad guys?"_

_Inside the helmet, he could see all the terrorists marked as red target, while the children were marked with the less menacing civilian blue._

"_Of course I am, Sir."_

"_Good. Then why don't we show the nazi granpa some of the newest technology of this century?"_

_He smiled when he felt the suit loading the winning shot._

_And then all went to hell._

Tony opened his eyes with a broken gasp.

The dark was suffocating, his prison smelled of blood and his fake heart was hurting his chest.

In the too deep silence of his own thoughts, he wondered again if he wanted to be saved.

* * *

He looked at the interrogation room through the one-way mirror, wondering how the prisoners could always be so easy to trick: too stupid to notice the danger behind a pretty face, too simpleminded to realize how fake was her frailty.

They never learned.

They saw the woman instead of the assassin and paid dearly for their foolish blindness and naivety when Natasha made them scream until they didn't have voice anymore.

This terrorist was just like many others before him: he had smirked seeing the too emotional expression Natasha had assumed in the first part of the interrogation. Then she had dislocated his shoulder and broken his elbow. And his hand. And all his fingers, in what she called 'a little warm-up'. After that, the Widow had grabbed one of her tools, and then there had been blood.

Clint continued staring at the interrogation with hands clenched into fists and body tense like he were about to start a fight.

He knew that, at every hit, at every agonizing scream from the tortured prisoner, the woman he loved was approaching the dark abyss where she risked to loose herself, a bloodstained past she had never been freed from. So he refused to take his usual position away from everything, to be a distant observer and nothing more; instead he look at every scene, every little detail, every gruesome aspect of this torture.

He noticed Natasha's tense shoulders, her blank expression, so far away from him and everything that it hurt him. But he never averted his gaze.

The terrorist resisted just a few more minutes before surrendering and revealing where Red Skull was keeping Stark, the voice rough and broken while he was barely conscious.

After the debriefing with Fury, Clint followed Natasha without speaking nor looking at her. He wasn't surprised when they end up in a little washroom, where she took her time to clean all the tools she had used during the interrogation. Her hands didn't tremble, he noticed; her gaze was blank, just like her face, hiding all of her thoughts, and she didn't even seem aware of his presence.

Clint remained silent at her side, waiting for her to finish. He just wanted to remind her that she was still one of the good guys, that he was there, ready to save her from her past one more time, if she needed to.

It was only when the last tool was as clean as new that she met his eyes. She still wore her usual expressionless mask, but her shoulders weren't tense anymore.

"Let's go, we have to take Stark back", she told him, hiding a knife in her right boot.

Clint smiled, glad she was with him again.

"After you."


	3. Chapter 2: Silent steps

Author's note: I really want to thank cara-tanaka/Sara for her help and her corrections. You're too kind!  


* * *

**Chapter 2: Silent steps**

_No one was aware of his presence._

_He walked with silent steps into the relics chamber, where testaments of ancient victories laid forgotten in the dark. The walls seemed to whisper old tales of glory and heroic acts that were now no more than faraway legends. Just a few remembered, in these last few centuries of peace; the war was impressed only in the oldest Æsir's wrinkles, only in the stories passed down from grandfather to grandson. No one knew how close the war had been to Asgard in the recent months._

_Loki slowed down his breathing, removing these last thoughts from his mind. He was now just a shadow, a breathless, weightless being, gliding in the mortal silence of the room without even a glimpse of his conscience, because a simple thought would have been enough to reveal his presence and to activate the defensive mechanism the All-Father himself had devised for the chamber._

_It was only an instant, and the thought of Odin almost made him lose control. He thinned his lips, because he could still feel a red hot grudge against his fake father. He still hated that horrible moment when all had appeared so clear and the truth had been revealed as painfully as an open wound – and the wound he had received that day was still spilling blood inside his heart. Maybe it would never heal. But his control didn't falter: he had been training for months for this day, so he wouldn't fail._

_Keeping his concentration, he reached the pedestal where the Casket of Ancient Winter had been moved after his attempt to destroy Jotunheim. There was something in it that attracted him and repelled him at the same time. It was through the Casket that he had discovered the truth, how all of his life had been based on a lie. But the Casket belonged to him, he could feel its call. _

_ For a moment he froze, divided between the Asgard prince he had impersonated all his life and his own nature, between the desire to possess a power no one could use better than him and the fear of seeing his light pink skin dissolving into blue, revealing the monster beneath his Æsir appearance._

_His breathing started to accelerate._

_They were all fools; the court which despised him without even knowing the truth, the ones that had deceived him since he was an infant, Odin, who had stared at him with a disappointed gaze – and he hated him, he hated the All-Father so much that the air seemed like a fire inside his lungs. Also Thor, his not-brother, that stupid oaf who had that wounded expression when they had fought near the Bifrost and, later, on Midgard._

_Just a bunch of fools._

_They had hidden a monster, with a spell based on lies and fake sentiments, and now that the spell had vanished they were surprised that the monster acted like one._

_A disturbance all around him drove him to regain control: he closed off his mind from all his memories, aligned his conscience with the pulsating magic which protected the artifacts and melt hims_ _elf with the chamber, erasing again every sound, smell or thought that could be perceived._

_Jotun or Áss, truth or lie, it didn't matter anymore, not now._

_What mattered was the power, the freezing energy in front of him, something cold and reassuring at the same time, like it were the crib he didn't remember. Soon there would be a war and he needed all the weapon he could find._

_He smiled while he was taking the Casket and he couldn't stop a single triumphant thought, as sharp as one of his knives, dissipating his invisibility spell that had hidden him even from Heimdall's gaze._

I've come to take what is rightfully mine, All-Father.

_And his laugh reverberated in the chamber even after he vanished, while Odin, sitting on his throne, opened his eyes with an horrified expression._

* * *

It had almost been a month since then.

A month since the Casket had disappeared, a month since Loki had been able to enter in the relics chamber, overcoming the guards and the spell which protected that place, to steal one of the most powerful artifacts in Asgard's possession. A month since he had been called back by his father to investigate.

In the last weeks, he hadn't had any success. Loki had vanished, maybe he was hiding in Midgard, maybe in one of the other Realms, and he feared for the other Avengers if his brother decided to attack them while he was in Asgard.

Loki was extremely dangerous even unarmed, but with the Casket he would have been unstoppable for his mortal friends – and, like any other times when he thought about the battle against the Chitauri, Thor wondered why his brother had surrendered so easily, without causing too much damage.

He shook his head.

Even if he was worried for his shield brothers and for Jane, there was Heimdall who watched over and guarded the Midgardians in his stead, and now he just had to concentrate for his father's summon.

He walked along the palace hall without even noticing the greetings and the friendly words from the people he passed by. He was sure that Odin wanted to talk about Loki and, as it always happened when his brother was involved, he couldn't think about anything else.

A wrinkle appeared on his forehead.

He was angry at his brother, but he felt his loss like a constant pain. It was like his happy childhood, the laughs, the joy of his youth had all been torn from him, now that Loki had disowned him as a brother and acted like a stranger.

And he felt guilty, because he feared to not have tried hard enough. He had _never_ tried hard enough to preserve their bond, because now he knew that he had been too arrogant to notice how cruel all the "know your place, brother" and the mockeries about his magic had been. And he hadn't been able to avoid his fall, when they were on the shattered Bridge, nor had he succeeded in convincing Loki to listen to him, during their fights on Midgard.

Loki had his own faults, he wouldn't deny it. But Loki would always be his brother and he knew that he himself wasn't utterly faultless either.

As soon as he reached the throne where Odin sat, he knelt, shifting his gaze between his father and his mother.

"Father, why have you summoned me?" he asked, before standing again at his signal.

For just one second, Odin's gaze seemed belonging to a tired old man, instead of the king of Asgard.

"Heimdall has perceived an energy similar to the Tesseract. On Midgard."

Thor stared at his father with wide eyes, while his heart beat so fast he thought Odin could hear it.

"Is the Tesseract...?"

If Loki succeeded in taking the Tesseract, after already having taking the Casket, maybe even he, with Mjolnir and all the other Avengers, wouldn't be able to stop him.

Odin shook his head.

"It is still safe in Asgard. But there is a mortal who showed a power he should not possess, so you are to go face him."

Thor nodded.

"And... what about Loki?"

"He's still shielding himself from Heimdall's gaze but he won't have missed this energy's emission." Odin's voice and expression became tired again. "I'm sure you'll cross his path if you are fast enough."

Thor nodded a second time. He couldn't wait to have another confrontation with his brother. Another chance to bring him back to Asgard, where maybe he could forgive him and be forgiven, to find again the Loki he once knew.

He bowed to his father, but as he was about to leave the room, he heard light steps behind him.

"Thor."

Faking a smile which didn't reach his eyes, he turned to face his mother.

"Don't lose your hope. Even if he seems lost to us, he can still be saved, remember that, my son." Frigga's hand stroked lightly his cheek, and for a moment Thor allowed himself to believe that all would go well "Bring your brother home."

* * *

He woke up when the silence he was used to was broken by an explosion of unexpected noises. In a room not too far from his prison, guns were shooting, people were screaming in rage and agony, bodies were falling down, one after another, and he heard some orders being shouted in a panicked German that proved who was winning out there. And while he was listening to the fight, he didn't even tense or prepare to participate in the battle.

When all was silent again, he looked up at the steel door of his cell. After all these days, it seemed the other Avengers had found him; but now he was wondering if he really wanted to be saved. He didn't expect their arrival with hope or joy, nor with desire for vengeance, because he knew he didn't deserve their help.

"_Iron Man... help... me."_

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to forget who he was, while in the dark of his mind he could recognize twisted bodies, terrified faces and so much blood that it would forever stain his hands. Then a light rustle caught his attention, because he didn't hear any footsteps or voices, nor the door creaking open.

"Stark? This is truly a surprise." He heard a silken voice somewhere in front of him. A voice that sounded quite familiar, even if not reassuring at all.

He abruptly opened his eyes again, recognizing a tall figure towering over him. But it wasn't one of his friends, as he had thought; it seemed the other Avengers had yet to find this place.

While the well-known intruder was staring at him, silent and menacing after the first question, Tony didn't even try to stand up or to put up a resistance. He just bowed his head, looking at the floor, and waited for the end.


	4. Chapter 3: Frost dust

_Author's note__: I want to thank cara-tanaka, LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books and Hikarikurai24587 for their comment. Special thanks go to cara-tanaka, for her amazing job as a beta. Thank you so much!_

* * *

**Chapter 3: Frost dust**

He appeared in a large room full of unfamiliar machineries and Migardians with the white uniform he had learned to associate with the scientists. Near the doors, there were some soldiers, and it took just a couple of seconds for him to realize he had arrived exactly where he wanted: the power he had perceived was right in front of him, where three armed men were talking.

He dispelled the invisibility veil he had used to hide himself.

"I did not know that Midgardians with such power existed." he said, in a mild interested tone.

He basked in the panicked gazes and the shouts that greeted his arrival, loving the fear, the astonishment, the terror he could cause with only his apparition. He allowed himself to smile, not even caring about the weapons those lowly mortals were threatening him with. As if he should fear their pathetic attacks.

One of the soldier dared to take a step forward, aiming at him with a rifle.

"Who are you? Identify yourself!"

Loki just had to make the slightest movement with his fingers to have his scepter materialize in his hand. It was similar to the one he possessed when he still thought he belonged to Asgard, but this one was more powerful.

"You dared to play god with a power which did not belong to you. And now the god himself has arrived and you can only kneel and beg for his forgiveness."

"Shoot him down! Kill him!"

The soldiers started shooting him, but the bullets didn't even graze the invisible shield he had spelled upon himself. His smile widened until his teeth were showing.

"Oh, well, your choice then."

He acted in a blink of an eye, closing his eyes to better feel his magic flowing in his veins and from his fingers. When he opened his eyes again, the floor was covered with blood and dead bodies. Other soldiers arrived, attracted by the screams and the shots, and he disposed of them with the same ease he had showed killing their companions.

Now there was just one survivor, the only one who hadn't screamed or showed a panicked reaction. Loki studied him with an interested gaze. Although he had a gun strapped to his thigh, he wasn't reaching for it, nor did he seemed scared. He was just flexing his fingers covered in black leather gloves, while staring back at the god.

Loki smiled again, lowering the scepter.

"You are the source of this power."

The mortal took a step forward.

"And you're the god He is looking for."

Loki's smile disappeared in an instant. His calm was gone, replaced by pure, suffocating rage, while the mortal's words echoed in his mind, colder than the air on Jotunheim.

"You are one of those who serve Thanos?"

The man began laughing, a hoarse, hollow sound belonging to someone who had been broken and built again, leaving behind part of his sanity – and Loki knew that sound so well it made him clench his fists.

"Only until I find a better faction to side with."

The laughter stopped, leaving the mortal with a much saner appearance. He hesitated while studying the god, then he tore off his face, revealing that he had worn a mask. Loki stared at him with a cold curiosity: there was a red skull beneath his fake face. It seemed something had burned him and was still burning beneath the skin. While his wrath was distracted by that strange look, the mortal held out his hand.

"Be my ally, Loki of Asgard. Together we'll be able to defeat Him. Our superiority will allow us to rule the Earth and all the other Realms."

This time it was Loki's turn to laugh, a more insane, menacing, lethal sound.

"Our superiority?" His laugh became an irate hiss "Foolish, arrogant mortal! You, for me, are no different from any other Midgardians."

The man lowered his arm and shrugged.

"It's a pity, you would have been an useful ally. It seems I have no choice, then. I have to hand you over to Him."

_There will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he cannot find you._

The god's gaze hardened, showing a perfectly controlled rage behind the green of the irises.

"And you really think you possess the power to threaten me?"

Without answering, the mortal lifted his right arm, aiming at him with his gloved palm, and suddenly Loki was assailed by the same energy that had called him there. He tensed when the raw, unexpected power collided against his shield. It wasn't exactly magic; it seemed an energy that a Midguardian shouldn't be able to possess, so intense that it would have turned a mortal to shreds. Against him, it only made him take a step back, more out of surprise than everything else.

Before he could counter with a spell, the mortal was already attacking him with his bare hands. Loki dodged the first punches, then he had to step aside to avoid a violent kick, recognizing in his movement something similar to Captain Rogers. This mortal was showing the same strength and speed as the man out of time.

He would have smiled, glad to have found an interesting opponent, if the mention of Thanos hadn't constricted his chest with a cold resentment.

When the man attacked again, he used the scepter to deviate his arm and backhanded him in his red face.

"Pathetic mortal. You dare to use powers you cannot even hope to understand. You dare to threaten _me_." he hissed, narrowing his eyes.

He dodged two more punches, then he hit the mortal in the back with his scepter.

Even if he wasn't as good as Thor in a purely physical fight, he was a god with centuries of experience in battles where he hadn't always used his magic. He didn't need to resort to his powers to defeat a Midgardian.

He hit him again, twice: in the face and in the stomach, with enough strength to make him step back. The punch the mortal succeeded in throwing at his chin was good, but didn't daze him. He had made Rogers kneel in Stuttgart without using his magic, he would defeat this man with a similar ease.

With a slight movement of his fingers, he made the scepter disappear and, instead of dodging the following attack, he blocked him with his hand. Suddenly, a blue energy burst out against his palm. He winced, before his own green magic arose to defend him, driving back the foreign power.

The mortal jumped back to avoid being damaged by it.

"It seems I won't be able to hold back against you." Smiling, the mortal attacked again with his strange blue energy, but this time it was a lot more powerful and violent. "I've always desired to try my new powers in a fight against a worthy opponent."

The shield would not be enough to protect him this time, Loki realized with an annoyed grimace, so

he called up his power again and met his attack halfway. For a moment there was a perfect balance, neither between the green and the blue energy seemed to be able to prevail. Then Loki concentrated a little bit more and the blue power began receding, while the green brightened the whole room.

The Midgardian struggled to maintain his position.

"How is it possible?" He wheezed, and for the first time his boldness faltered "I should be invincible!"

Loki snorted.

"Maybe among the mortals. But you dared to challenge a god and now you have to face the consequences."

He didn't chose any spells, since he wanted to show the mortal that he could overpower him anytime he wanted. This time, the man staggered with a horrified gaze, while his arm started to tremble. Then he was thrown against the wall.

The black glove on his right hand had been dissolved by both of their energies and Loki was able to see a blue palm, the real source of that strange power.

He recognized it at first sight: it was the Tesseract. Somehow, the Midgardian possessed a glimpse of its power, like a shard of it had been fused with the skin of his hand.

"He will find you." the mortal exhaled, still trembling in the aftershock of experiencing Loki's power "You need me as an ally, because Thanos is looking for you."

It was that name that made the god lose his control. The memories of his fall, of the meeting with the Mad Titan began eroding his thoughts, bringing with them a pain so vivid it seemed real.

_Nothing. Nothing apart from pain and emptiness._

Loki tried to breathe, but his lungs didn't obey him anymore, they were collapsing in all this agony.

"_You will never be able to escape from me, little god."_

He wasn't in the Midgardian facility anymore, he was on a dark, shattered stone in the void.

_And the pain was so intense he felt his head splitting in half, his mind was broken, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't speak, he couldn't think, he was lost in the agony like a helpless child, no more a god, in front of the Titan, but a young being as frail as a mortal._

His magic arose in his defense without his call, a bright green flame which blazed up until it encased his opponent. The mark the Tesseract had left on his palm wasn't enough anymore and the mortal began screaming while the god's power slowly consumed him.

But it was too lenient a punishment for the one who had dared to threaten a god, to remind him of the times full of pain when he was in Thanos' hands.

The mortal had to be destroyed immediately.

While his mind was still fighting against those memories, he recalled the Casket from the recess where he had hidden his treasures, materializing it directly in his hands, both lifted near his chest. He didn't lower his gaze to see his body turning blue, he just drew the power from it with the same ease as he was breathing, letting the cold energy flow from his fingers and his arms to the pathetic mortal standing in front of him.

When he focused on his surroundings again, the Midgardian was frozen in a cage made of perfect, pure ice. He vanished the Casket without looking at his hands, then he took some deep breaths, to recover at least a part of his control.

The mortal was defeated, Thanos was far away and he could again lock his memories in the darkest recesses of his mind.

His eyes moved to his fallen enemy. Even if he had been one of Thanos' slaves, it would have been a waste if his power had died with him.

Loki evoked his sharpest knife, one which was made lethal by both forging and magic, and used it to cut off the mortal's right arm. After he removed the ice, he peeled the blue layer from the dead hand. It was like a second skin made of pure energy, but he didn't want to fuse it with his palm like the Midgardian had done, so he molded it into a pearl.

Even if it wasn't as precious or as powerful as the Tesseract, he could still attach it to his scepter to prolong or amplify his spells. He just had to bind this new power to his magic and then it would truly be his and his alone.

He smiled, while looking around and seeing only dead bodies, blood and shattered machineries, all the evidence of his undeniably superiority.

It had been a really good idea coming to this place when he had perceived that strange power.

He vanished the pearl, hiding it in the same place where he had vanished the Casket. Out of curiosity, he then began exploring the facility, entering in the smaller labs and in the dormitory. There wasn't anybody, but it was expected, since all the foolish mortals in the building seemed to have come running at the first sounds of the fight.

It was in the basement that he felt a presence. Walking silently, he reached a heavy door without bars, which only had a little window too small to allow someone to see what or who was being held inside.

He used a glimpse of his power to teleport inside of the cell and, for the first time since he had arrived at the facility, he allowed himself to show surprise.

There, seated motionlessly on the floor was Tony Stark.


	5. Chapter 4: Enemies

_Author's note__: I want to thank cara-tanaka for the comment and her work as my amazing beta. Thank you so much!_

**Chapter 4: Enemies**

_The boredom was his worst enemy._

_It didn't matter that the Avengers had defeated him, since he had already known it was one of the possible outcomes of the war he had chosen to be a part of. And it was an outcome he really didn't mind, because he had never wanted Thanos to win._

_He didn't even care about the lights that were always turned on or about the glass walls of his cell that let him see the hatred and the rage in the people's gazes when they passed nearby. Even Thor's presence didn't particularly bother him. He knew that the stupid oaf would have tried to talk to him, so, during his visits, he simply remained silent. The only words he spoke to Thor where cold orders to leave him alone or some well chosen offenses._

_But there wasn't anything in his annoying cage and the boredom was intolerable._

_He hadn't even had any verbal skirmish with one of his enemies. Once or twice he had seen Banner, and the beast hadn't even turned his head in his direction, walking silently and quickly towards the door in the opposite side of the room which contained his cage._

_Agent Romanov had watched him the day before, without speaking or showing any emotions. He had to recognize that she was similar to him, since they both were used to lies and to play with the truth for their goals, but now that she thought him defeated, she wasn't interesting enough to alleviate his bad mood. He had stared back with an equally blank expression, while deep inside his mind he had still been bored and annoyed. The woman was too controlled and too distant to be of any fun when he had to play the ungrateful role of a defeated enemy. He had made a comment about Hawkeye's absence, however, and the almost invisible hardening of her gaze had made him feel a little glimpse of satisfaction._

_Rogers had appeared twice and had been staying for just a few minutes. He was so disgustingly good and idealistic that it would have been an interesting challenge to try to corrupt him and to see how much time would it take to ruin is innocence and his heroic behavior. But now he didn't have enough time or the means to try this experiment._

_Fury too had come to him, trying to make him talk. He wanted information about Asgard, about his own powers, about the Chitauri, and he had tried to intimidate him with threats that had almost made him laugh. The Midgardians knew nothing about real pain and desperation._

_But the steps he could hear now didn't belong to any of these people. They were unfamiliar and it took a couple of seconds for him to associate them with a face._

"_You are not stealthy enough to approach me from behind, Stark." he said, a moment before turning to face him._

_The annoying mortal continued stepping forward, until he was next to his prison's wall. He had a glass half full of some amber liquid and he lifted it to show it to him._

"_So nervous already? I'd offer you a drink, but the last time I did, you threw me out of the window, so..." He shrugged, assuming a false apologetic expression "Beside, I don't think Fury's henchmen would be happy if I opened this pretty glass box where you're locked up."_

_Loki lifted his chained wrists hiding a grimace. Every time he felt the heavy chains that trapped his hands, he didn't know if he wanted to laugh or to scream in rage, because the chains were forged with old runes and forgotten spells; so powerful they would be a serious challenge even for him, but the fools that wanted him captured didn't know he didn't want to escape._

"_Why are you here?"_

_Stark gulped down the entire content of the glass._

"_I like watching you while you're in a cage. I find it relaxing."_

_For that, Loki would kill him slowly. He just had to wait until he was in Asgard, then he would escape; he already had a plan. But, for now, he just had to bear with the irritating mortal, using the only weapon he had left._

"_And you are lucky that I am trapped here, are you not?" he murmured, in a low, silken voice "Because you are utterly helpless in front of me. The only one among the Avengers who is truly weak. You do not have special powers, you have not received any specific training, even the woman of your little team of heroes is a lot more stronger and a lot more dangerous than you." He opened his lips in a grin that showed his teeth "Without that suit of yours, you are nothing."_

_Stark held his gaze for almost a minute, his expression tense and hard, before he shrugged and smiled back._

"_At least I can scratch my back anytime I want. Sleep well on the floor, Reindeer Games."_

* * *

_He hadn't slept. He had just spent the night meditating, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his eyes closed and the chained hands on his knees. His body still hurt after the terrible beating inflicted by the green beast, but even without his magic, he could feel the broken bones healing slowly._

_When Stark came back, after some hours spent under Rogers' boring watch, he had a malicious smile on his face that Loki didn't like._

_Lifting his right hand, Stark showed him a strange metal contraption._

"_I brought you a gift."_

* * *

Loki just needed one instant to realize the mortal's condition. His hair was ruffled and dirty, his naked body was covered in bruises and whipping wounds, and Stark hadn't even opened his eyes. He just remained still, with the arms around his legs, and his apathy felt completely wrong, considering how irritating and noisy the mortal usually was . His chained wrists and collared neck were covered in old blood but he didn't seem gravely injured, at least from what Loki could see without a more thorough examination.

"Stark? This is truly a surprise." he said, more to attract the mortal's attention than to express his surprise.

The Avenger suddenly opened his eyes. His gaze flickered in Loki's direction but after one second he lowered it on the floor, like he didn't even want to defend himself.

Loki grimaced. There was something very wrong with Stark's behavior: silence and immobility didn't suit the Man of Iron. In fact, this entire situation seemed unreal. And he didn't like the resignation he had caught in his gaze during the brief moment the mortal had stared at him.

If it was because of the pain or of the weariness, Loki didn't know, but it seemed Stark didn't want to react at all.

He lifted his hand, aiming at the mortal's head, with his magic already collected in a pale green light on his fingers.

"Will you not beg for your life?"

His words echoed in the dark prison without receiving any answers. Although Stark wasn't chained to the floor, he didn't try to move, nor to escape. He just remained motionless with his head bowed. And that made Loki hesitate.

Stark was an enemy and the fates had put him in his hands. He had a lot to punish him for: past offenses, fights, antagonism and all of what had happened in their whole months as enemies.

_His mouth was infested by the disgusting metal taste of the gag. The heavy chains reminded him of his defeat at every breath and he hated his enemies' satisfied expressions. He hated one of them in particular._

"_You know, Loki, bondage suits you. Have you ever used chains in bed, when you were in Asgard?"_

_If eyes could kill, Stark would have died in that exact instant. He desired to kill him with such intensity that he almost felt his magic trying to break through the chains which sealed his power._

_The mortal seemed to understand what he was thinking, because he chuckled._

"_With all the leather you wear, I'd be surprised if you hadn't."_

He could kill him. It would be so easy that he already felt the spell on the tip of his fingers...

But now, it was Stark who was the one in chains. He even looked at the floor like a broken, submissive prisoner. And Loki was curious and annoyed at the same time about his strange behavior. He wanted to know how much pain the mortal was feeling to be so defeated. Besides, he liked the idea of keeping him as a prisoner for a while, like a testament of his triumph. It was alluring, the thought of saving him now and healing him just so he could destroy him with his own hands.

He grabbed one of Stark's arms and forced him to stand, with a rough movement that made him hiss through his serried lips.

"A kneeling Avenger is more satisfying than a dead one." Loki murmured, next to the mortal's ear.

Then, in a green flash of light, he made them both disappear from the cell.


	6. Chapter 5: Memories

Author's note: as always I really want to thank cara-tanaka, for her comment and her help. And thanks you all for the favs and the follows, I hope this chapter won't disappoint you.

* * *

**Chapter 5: Memories**

_Tony wanted to die. Literally die because he wasn't sure he could go on living in this condition. Surely, death would be a mercy._

_Why had he decided it was a good idea to become a superhero?_

_His stomach hurt like it was trying to escape from his body through his throat. He was so nauseated, he couldn't think straight and Fury's too loud voice was making his hangover a real, sadistic torture. He felt like he was being hit directly in his brain with a hammer and he was sure that such vocal abuse before the dawn was forbidden by the Geneva Conventions._

_He had tried to ignore the spy's call but Jarvis hadn't let him because 'it's an important matter Sir, you should pick up the phone'._

_He groaned, trying not to puke in his suit._

_Again, why had he wanted to become a superhero?_

"_Why did you make me get out of my home at five am?" he asked, interrupting one of Fury's diatribes "And spare me the usual BS you fob your agents off with. If you want my help, you'll have to tell me everything."_

_He heard a curse, which immediately improved his mood._

"_Loki was sighted in Central Park."_

_Those words increased his soberness to fifty percent._

"_You mean Thor's psychopathic adoptive brother? The one with the horned helm and leather clothes fetishism?"_

"_Exactly." Fury's voice was cold and threatening and the fact he hadn't even retorted to his ironical words showed how angry he was. Probably the spy was planning a terrible fate for the god, once Loki was in their hands._

_Tony didn't ask how the god had been able to escape from Asgard. Since Loki had asked for a drink, showing a perfectly collected and almost cheerful expression, although the Hulk had just used him to destroy part of his Tower, Tony had been sure the god had surrendered because he had wanted it, not because he had really felt defeated. Even if Tony hated him because of Phil's death and Loki's attempt at conquering the Earth, he couldn't deny that the god was a lot smarter and a lot more clever than others thought._

_A guy like him always had a backup plan._

_He almost smiled inside his helmet. At least, he now had someone to blame for his growing headache. Kicking Reindeer Games' bony ass would surely make his hangover better._

"_When you engage him, keep him occupied and do not let him get close to the civilians." Fury ordered "Romanov and Barton are arriving as soon as they can."_

_This time, Tony smiled for real. He hadn't seen the two agents since the Chitauri's attack so it would be a nice reunion._

"_Okay but they'll have to be quick."_

_He switched frequency to receive another call without even saying goodbye to the spy._

"_Leave some of him for us too."_

_Tony recognized immediately this new voice._

"_As you wish, Legolas." he greeted the archer "Maybe, if you'll get there in time, you'll manage to give Fury an eyepatch-friend."_

"_Be careful." Natasha's severe voice admonished him, covering Clint's fierce approval for Tony's words._

"_Don't worry, just arrive as soon as possible."_

_By the time Tony reached the park, it was dawn. He stopped in midair, astonished. Beneath him, there was a slim layer of ice which covered the ground and formed at its edges four transparent walls. And in the center of this sort of ice-made cage was Loki._

_Tony landed behind his back, still staring at the strange construction with wide eyes. If he had to trust Jarvis – and Jarvis was never wrong, since it was his creation – the temperature around him was way below thirty two degrees*._

"_You know, when people are hot they just buy a fan or an ice-cream. They don't change Central Park into a fucking igloo."_

_Loki turned to face him and it was then that the Avenger noticed his condition: the clothes under the golden armor were torn and covered in blood. The god didn't have his usual helmet and his black hair was bloodied and unkempt. His pale face showed two open gashes, one on his forehead and one on his cheek. There were dark circles under his eyes but his gaze was bright and lucid and for a moment, Tony though he could see a crimson glow in the god's green irises._

"_Stark."_

_The Avenger stepped forward, showing an ease he really didn't feel while he readied himself to shoot the god at the first sign of any threat. He wasn't completely sober and his enemy was a psychopathic alien with godlike powers and a lot of unresolved family issues, so he was going to be cautious. This time, he wouldn't go for attack first and think later, as he was used to do._

"_Long time no see, Reindeer Games. You seem quite battered. Daddy's spanking was worse than you thought?"_

_So much for being cautious._

_Against all his expectations, Loki began laughing._

"_Not at all. Actually, I have never been better." The laughter died in a toothy grin "Leaving Asgard behind was really liberating."_

"_Speaking of Asgard, why aren't you still there? Shouldn't you be hanging from a rope or staying behind bars or be on Thor's leash?"_

_A glimpse of rage flashed in the god's gaze but the grin didn't falter._

"_The All-Father thought he could restrain me without killing me. He thought that a cell and the chains could keep me captive. Even with all of his wisdom, he still was a fool."_

_Tony didn't like it. Thor had always talked about his father with respect and admiration, describing him as an almighty infallible old king. And okay, it was obvious that Thor was biased but still it was worrying that even the gods' powerful king hadn't been able to contain his rebel son. Oh right, his rebel, adoptive and batshit crazy son._

"_I thought the people in Asgard had some chains which would be able to seal your powers." he told Loki, without showing his preoccupied thoughts._

_The god laughed again._

"_Yes, they thought so too."_

_While he was speaking, blood began trickling down his mouth, staining his chin, and he absentmindedly licked it away._

_And Tony couldn't avert his gaze._

Punctured lungs or damage to some internal organs_, the rational part of his mind realized. The less rational and less sober part of him thought that Loki could have a bright future in the gay porn industry._

_Tony shook his head to sober up, then he aimed at the god with all of the most visible weapons of his suit, as he had done in Stuttgart. Even if his enemy seemed to have trouble standing without faltering under the weight of his armor, Tony wasn't so foolish to believe him helpless. He might be already hurt but Loki was a god whose powers hadn't been completely revealed yet, as the strange ice cage around them demonstrated._

"_So, are you coming without complaining or should I use the hard way?" he asked the god "You know, at home I've got a commemorative duplicate of your gag."_

_Loki's gaze hardened showing a dark, cold rage._

"_Do not think I have forgotten, Stark." the god hissed before conjuring a weapon similar to both a scepter and a lance "I never forget."_

_Since Tony didn't want to let him make the first move, he quickly used his right hand to shot him but Loki was faster. He vanished in a flash of green and gold light, then he reappeared behind Tony's back and hit him in his head with the scepter. Luckily for the Avenger, the helmet creaked but held up so he could fly away to put some distance between them._

_Even if his enemy was more a magician than a warrior, he had to remember that the god's strength was not to be underestimated. Cap would agree with him, considering what had happened in Stuttgart._

_He managed to avoid Loki's attack twice but he still hadn't found an opening to counter him._

"_You will kneel at my feet, mortal." the god snarled with a voice between a threat and a promise._

"_Sorry but I never kneel before the third date. Or at least before dinner." Tony replied, smiling even if he was finding it difficult to handle both the fight and the hangover "You know, I'm an old school kind of guy."_

_This time Loki's green energy hit him fully in the chest, sending him crashing against the ice wall, shattering it._

"_Quite a susceptible god, we have." Tony murmured, getting up again to just narrowly avoid two other green attacks. He was already sore but the hit had managed to sober him up a little. He lifted both his hands, aiming at Loki's head "Let's see how you like this."_

_And the fight could truly begin._

He remembered everything about his second fight against Loki. The first time he had faced him personally. It was almost an year ago.

And now, he was confused because the god hadn't killed him yet and was simply staring at him in an unnerving silence.

He refused to scream when Loki made him stand roughly but the pain exploded in all of his body and for a moment, he saw black spots in front of his eyes.

Next thing he saw while he was still wondering what the god's intentions were, was a green, blinding light.

* * *

*little note: the temperature here is measured in Fahrenheit degrees. If it were in Celsius degrees, it would be 'way below the zero'.


	7. Chapter 6: On his knees

_Author's note: thank you so much to the people who have been reviewing, alerting, faving and just reading this story. Special thanks go to Vespren and Margaret for the comments, and to sara-tanaka, for both her comment and her help as a beta._

* * *

**Chapter 6: On his knees**

_Judging on the intensity of the spell that had hit him, the god hadn't found his joke about the kneeling thing amusing._

_Tony stood again, breathing with effort now that the fight was beginning to tire him out. And after a few minutes of dealing with a wounded but very angry god, even with his suit on, he was covered in bruises._

_When Loki attacked him again, Tony managed to avoid both the scepter and the magic while he was charging the shot which he hoped would end the fight. He was hit in the stomach with a swing of the scepter but at the same time he shot the god, hitting him fully in the chest. Then he shot Loki a missile, just to be sure that he would stay down and he stumbled, exhausted, trying to catch his breath._

_He wasn't really wounded but he hurt everywhere, thanks to Loki's crazy attacks._

_He looked at the god. He was so sure his enemy would be at least unconscious, that he almost jumped when he realized he had been so fucking wrong. Loki was on his knees, panting. Under him, there was a puddle of his own blood. But he was still alive, still awake._

_And somehow, that sight was more worrying than seeing the god at full health._

"_Wasn't I the one who should have knelt, Reindeer Games?" Tony heard himself saying before he could think._

_With a scream of pure rage, the god stood up and struck him in the blink of an eye._

_Tony's curses got lost in the battle's noises while he again tried not to be pierced by the scepter and to evade Loki's spells._

_He didn't know how it was possible that a person so wounded could still attack him with such fierceness. But Loki was fighting like a cornered beast, he used magic and spells without pausing and even bloodied and paler than usual, he still had the upper hand in the battle._

_After some nasty hits, Tony managed to kick him thanks to Jarvis' indication but one instant later the god was attacking him again._

_The Avenger had to admit it: threatening the god before Nat and Clint arrived hadn't been one of his smartest ideas._

_A green blast of energy sent him smashing into a tree. When he managed to stand up, he was almost puking because of the pain – not because of the alcohol, the alcohol was good, in fact it wonderfully muffled the pain._

_Jarvis informed him that his suit was too damaged to fly again and that the energy was dropping quickly._

_Next thing Tony knew, he was lifted up from the ground while angry green eyes stared at him. As soon as he realized that Loki had lifted him with one hand – him and the suit, and how was that possible? – grabbing his neck, he couldn't find words anymore._

_With a shiver, now he knew that Loki had just been fooling around during the invasion with the Chitauri. The god had never fought seriously. Not like this, like he was fighting for his life, like he was ready to destroy the entire city if he happened to go down._

_And Tony had never seen him so furious. Now, Loki seemed like a cornered, dangerous animal and it was clear that he would find a way to escape and to remain free even if he had to conquer his freedom upon the bodies of his enemies, killing everyone who dared to hinder him._

_Someone like Tony, for example._

"_Legolas, where are you?" the Avenger asked as soon as Jarvis opened the communication, while he could feel the grip on the neck's suit tightening "I have a very angry god who's trying to throttle me right now. Some help would be appreciated."_

"_We'll be here in a few minutes. Try to stay alive."_

_A vicious stab on his left shoulder made him realize that Loki had managed to destroy the hidden weapon with which Tony was going to shot at him._

"_Easier said than done." he grumbled._

_He tried to free himself from the god's grasp but Loki seemed to have fingers made of iron, his grip was too strong and the suit was caving in._

_Tony paled when he realized that maybe the god would kill him this way. He knew he wasn't a coward. When he went through the portal, he had been sure he would have died. But he wasn't able to face Loki without even a glimpse of fear because now his enemy truly seemed like a god. An enraged, unstoppable, terrifying god._

_And, in front of him, Tony was only a human._

"_Are you now aware of your helplessness, mortal?" Loki hissed, like he was able to read his mind "Have you realized how foolish you were when you decided to defy a god?"_

_Tony's eyes shifted from his enemy's eyes to the red trace on his chin._

"_Didn't think gods could bleed."_

_Even if he expected it, Tony didn't really see the attack. He just muffled a scream when a dart of magic passed through the already damaged suit and pierced his shoulder. He concentrated on breathing, waiting for the pain to become bearable and he couldn't move when Loki lifted his fingers and with frightening ease, tore off the frontal part of the helmet._

_Tony really hoped Loki would kill him quickly because now he knew the sorcerer could tear him to pieces with his bare hands, if he wanted._

_With both of his hands, he grabbed the god's wrist, trying in vain to force him to let go. He felt terribly helpless without the helmet to shield himself from his gaze. Even with the exhausted, pale face, the wheeze and the wounds, Loki was terrifying. Tony had never been so scared and so conscious of how unequal the fight had been, maybe because the god was still standing after being hit with a fucking missile, after bleeding so profusely, after having already been exhausted and wounded before the fight had started. Loki was still standing, making Tony realize that during the old battles, the god had just played with them._

_So, that was a god's true power._

_Still struggling in vain to free himself, the Avenger saw a red glimpse in his enemy's eyes. He froze, wondering if that red shade was something related to the adoption thing or if it was instead the concrete testament of Loki's rage. Then, his survival instinct kicked in and erased any other thoughts._

_He tried to collect the residual energy in his thrusters but the suit was too damaged and he could only struggle helplessly against the god's grip._

_The sky above them was still clear. Natasha and Clint were arriving but it would be too late for him. Tony knew it and Loki knew it too._

"_Will you beg for your life, Tony Stark?"_

_The Avenger shook his head, trying an ironic smile to hide his fear._

"_I'm sorry, but it's not my styl..." he began saying but the hold on his throat tightened until he was struggling to breathe._

_The god grinned and for a moment, Tony was sure that his threatening expression was going to be the last thing he saw._

_Then Loki pulled him closer._

"_Consider yourself lucky that I will let you live" he whispered "And prepare yourself to beg for my mercy because soon you will kneel at my feet."_

_Before Tony could form a reply, the grip on his neck disappeared._

_Loki had vanished._

* * *

He felt like he was escaping from his own body. Like he was just in his mind, which was being projected at an absurd speed in another reality. His only perception was the dark. He was surrounded by it, he could touch it, taste it, see it, hear it. Then, he felt his own stomach trying to rebel while his blood seemed to flow backwards and his lungs were so constricted he couldn't breathe.

He staggered when he again felt something solid under his feet but even if his legs gave up, Loki was still holding his arm, so Tony didn't fall down. He trembled, trying to regain his balance and not to puke on the floor.

All around him, it was hazy and confusing and the god at his side was the only stable, firm presence in a place where everything seemed to keep spinning.

When he could finally breathe again and the sickness slowly disappeared, he realized he was in an unfamiliar living room of an unknown house. _Still alive_.

He blinked and finally he could focus on his surroundings, while his eyes became accustomed to the daylight again. It wasn't an illusion, he really was in a large, neat living room which differed greatly from his dark prison.

He had been so sure he would have died in that cell, like a forgotten, unwanted parody of a hero. He would have died and the other Avengers wouldn't have even known it. He had been ready for the end, he hadn't wanted to fight because he didn't mind death. At least not now, when he wasn't a hero anymore._ And still, he was inexplicably alive_.

His surprise made him lift his gaze to meet the god's eyes. He opened his mouth as to talk and to express his confusion but he closed it immediately after without saying anything.

While he was still trying to find a meaning for his situation, the strong hold on his arm disappeared and Loki moved to be in front of him. He seemed taller and more imposing than he had ever been, maybe because he was wearing his full armor while Tony was naked and unarmed.

It was the first time the Avenger didn't have the impulse to crack a joke about the god's horned helm.

_Once_, he could afford the irony, the arrogance, the satisfaction of being part of the good guys, of the heroes. _Once_, he was one of the brave warriors who protected normal people and fought for justice. _Once_, Iron Man still existed. But now he was just Stark and he wasn't sure if his presence could be useful for the world.

He let Loki study him without moving, waiting for the verdict to what would happen to him. The god's green eyes stared at his naked chest, where the Arc Reactor was. Then they went lower, slowly, like they wanted to see even the smallest detail of Tony's body. When they returned staring at his face, Loki was grinning.

"Please, tell me that your captors had been the ones who disrobed you and that this is not how you are inside your armor." he commented with the same mockery he had used in their past fights.

Tony tensed slightly under the god's amused gaze, feeling the humiliation of being shackled and naked in front of his enemy. The chain that bound his wrists to the collar on his neck was too short to allow him to reach his groin with his hands, so he didn't even try to move to cover himself. But even this humiliation wasn't strong enough to overcome his apathy and he simply continued staring at the floor. He had been naked since the day he was captured, when the terrorists had tore off something more than mere clothes from him, taking him away from Iron Man, the only heroic part of his life. Now, the nakedness didn't really bother him anymore.

He more sensed than saw Loki looking at him with a strange expression. Then the god's face hardened and he grabbed Tony's chain.

"On your knees, mortal." Loki snarled, yanking the chain roughly towards the floor.

Tony fell on his knees and the impact with the floor made him press his lips together to choke a whimper. He remained in this position even when the god let the chain go, feeling helpless and uncertain, while Loki continued staring at him.

The god had kept his promise.


	8. Chapter 7: Too late

_Author's Note: Thank you so much for the comments, the favs and the alerts. I'm really glad you're enjoying my story! I also want to thank my amazing beta Sara/cara-tanaka, for correcting and editing my chapter._

* * *

**Chapter 7: Too late**

"It seems we're too late." Clint said.

They had just rushed in the facility where the Hydra prisoner had told them Tony Stark was being held but there was no one there. No one alive, to be precise.

Behind him, Clint felt Cap's breathing suddenly stop while Bruce was already breathing in that calm and regular rhythm he used when he was trying to control his anger. Natasha, with her two guns already in her hands was advancing silently through the bodies, without showing any emotions.

Clint began doing the same thing in the opposite position, looking around and being ready to act against any unexpected movements.

"If this is Tony's doing, remind me to never make him angry again." he commented while he tightened his grip on the bow.

General random massacres were nothing new for him but there was something very wrong in this scene. All the bodies belonged to Hydra soldiers or scientists and nobody had been shot. All the wounds seemed caused by some sort of knife or sword. The machineries had been destroyed, the floor was cracked like the Hulk had jumped on it a couple of times and in the center of this destruction there was a body trapped in a block of ice.

As soon as he shifted his gaze to the dead man, he understood why Steve had stopped breathing just a few minutes before: even if Clint had seen the man's face in just some old reports and in the video feed that Tony had transmitted them a month ago, he recognized him as Red Skull. Hydra's real and only head.

And one of Red Skull's arms was missing.

Clint's eyes moved to the mutilated shoulder. Where the arm had been cut, he could see the muscles and the veins still frozen. The ice was so cold that there wasn't a single drop of blood on the floor. Almost fascinated by the sight and curious to feel it, he touched the ice. Immediately, he had to withdraw his hand with a gasp to avoid a nasty frost bite because the glassy surface was much colder than he expected.

"Clint."

Natasha was at his side in the blink of an eye. He hinted a smile, both to reassure her and to apologize.

"I've never touched anything so cold." he said, massaging his fingers "If I hadn't pulled my hand away, I think it would have frozen."

"It's strange." Bruce commented while he was coming closer "It's quite hot, in here but the ice isn't melting."

He examined the block of ice, then he stared at the mutilated arm.

"And the cut is strange too."

"What do you mean?"

"The cut's clear, like it's been done effortlessly even if the ice is very hard. And I doubt that a blade that sharp or a man that strong exists." After one last glance, Bruce stepped back "If I had to guess, I'd say it was done with a laser. But the wound doesn't seem cauterized, so I really don't know."

The laser thing was an extremely reassuring hypothesis.

"Do you think that Tony built a new weapon?" Steve asked, voicing Clint's exact thoughts.

They all knew the story about Iron Man's birth and it didn't seem impossible that Tony had been able to escape twice from his captors.

Before Bruce could answer, some heavy steps behind their backs made them turn around, ready to fight. But instead of the enemies they expected, they found Thor.

"It was not the Man of Iron" The god said, in a sad, tired voice "It was my brother"

* * *

Even after the god had let the chain go, Tony was still in his kneeling position, with his head bowed, shoulders bent in defeat, his eyes aimed at Loki's feet.

So that was the reason the god still hadn't killed him.

He should have known that Loki wanted his humiliation before the information about the Avengers. Actually, the god had said he would have made him kneel that day months ago.

Distantly, he wondered if Loki was finding the image of his enemy kneeling at his feet pleasurable. If the god found it _exciting_. Probably yes, an Avenger's defeat would have made him feel powerful. But Tony didn't have a reason to rebel so he didn't move and soon enough these thoughts expired in his apathy.

"So, you have finally understood your place." The god said but his emotionless voice somehow contradicted his satisfied words.

Tony heard a rustle when Loki bent down over him. A second later, he felt a rough grip on his chin and he was forced to meet the god's eyes.

"Are you not answering?"

When the Avenger remained silent, Loki narrowed his eyes. He gripped his chin tighter, forcing him to open his mouth.

"They did not cut your tongue," he murmured to himself before letting him go and straightening his body.

Then, he began circling him, like a wild beast would do with his prey and Tony had to fight against his instincts to remain still. Even through his apathy, the Avenger felt deep inside his body that it was utterly wrong to be in such a vulnerable position while his enemy was standing behind his back.

When Loki lightly touched one of the wounds that were on his shoulders, Tony tensed. It was painful and he didn't expect it but as he was preparing for the worst, the god lifted his fingers without pressing down onto the whipping mark.

"It seems you have enjoyed the hospitality of those mortals for quite a long time." Loki commented. He was still behind Tony's back but closer than the Avenger would have thought "What were your companions doing? Were they so inept that they could not find their precious ally?" The god came closer until Tony shivered lightly, feeling him breathing on his nape "Or did they consider you expendable? Did they not want to save you?"

_To save me?_

Tony tensed immediately. Then, he had to fight the impulse to laugh until his throat hurt and he couldn't breathe anymore because he had spent whole nights hoping that no one came to save him. He didn't want the Avengers to find him, he didn't want to meet their eyes and to see in them the rage, the disgust, the derision he knew he deserved.

In a blink of an eye, Loki was in front of him.

"You still remain silent?" The god grabbed him by the hair, making him stand again "With all your words, you do not have anything to say?"

His voice contained a barely suppressed anger and Tony looked at the floor without reacting, hiding his gaze. He didn't want to fight anymore, he was already defeated, dead inside. W_hy wasn't Loki killing him yet?_

Like he was able to read his thoughts, the god relaxed and released his hair.

"Has a little pain been enough to break you, Stark?" he asked Tony but his voice wasn't an angry and venomous hiss anymore. It was soft, low, like he was speaking to himself.

_The pain?_

A sudden flashback invaded Tony's mind: a blue light, the screams, a shoot. And before that, his own arrogant, self-confident voice.

_And finally, there had just been the horror._

It hadn't been the pain that had broken him.

While he was still remembering what he desperately wanted to forget, he almost missed the small, elegant movement of Loki's fingers, which made the chain and the collar disappear.

Incredulous, Tony lifted his gaze to meet the god's eyes. He was free. For the first time in what seemed like years, he didn't have the heavy chain around his wrists or the collar on his neck. He extended his arms with a relieved sigh, to alleviate the cramps after being tied for so long. Then, he rubbed his excoriated wrists without caring of the caked blood.

He was so busy enjoying his new found freedom that he gasped in pain and surprise when the god suddenly grabbed his hair again.

"If you do something I do not like, these will come back. And they will be much heavier." Loki threatened him, nodding at Tony's free wrists and neck "Do I make myself clear?"

When the hold on his hair became more painful, forcing him to clench his jaw to choke a moan, Tony nodded. The god loosened his hold without letting him go and for a moment his gaze lingered on the Avenger's hands, which hadn't even moved to defend himself.

When Loki lifted his gaze again, Tony saw a glimpse of irritation in his green eyes.

Suddenly, the god shoved him away roughly, making him stumble.

"Now, go take a shower. I have no intention of having you in my house in this condition." he ordered, coldly.

Then, in a green flash, he was gone and Tony was alone.


	9. Chapter 8: In his hands

Author's note: Thank you very much for the comments, I really appreciated them and I'm glad you like my fic! And special thanks go to my beta cara-tanaka, who edited this chapter too.

* * *

**Chapter 8: In his hands**

Feeling the warm water on his battered skin was a wonderful sensation. He was burning, the wounds hurt but he didn't care. What mattered now was that he could clean himself and wash away all the filth and the dried blood that covered his body.

With the noises of the shower silencing his thoughts, it allowed him to think about nothing. To be no one.

After a few minutes, the pain became more bearable and he scrubbed his chafed wrists until they bled again. But it was good to be clean again and to be free from the chains.

Finally, when every inch of his body was clean and reddened from the scrubbing, he closed his eyes and remained under the warm water, feeling more relaxed than he had been since the day of his capture. Soon, he would have to face Loki again. He still didn't know why the god hadn't killed him yet – and he was sure he wouldn't like his reason. But for now, he wanted to enjoy this moment of peace without thinking and to let the warm water soothe his wounds.

He didn't know how much time he spent in the shower before deciding to turn the water off. He took a nearby towel to dry himself and when he felt he was no longer wet, he laced it around his hips, basking in the sensation of having something to cover at least a part of his body. The towel was soft and comforting and it surprised him how good something he had always taken for granted felt.

He wanted to remain in the bathroom forever but he was hungry and he still didn't know what Loki wanted to do with him.

With a sigh, he walked out of the bathroom, returning to the living room. He was barefoot but the floor was clean and warmer than the cold prison where he had been living in the past month.

He looked around and held his breath but there wasn't anyone nearby. The house seemed deserted.

Like the bathroom and the floor, this room was perfectly neat and clean. But it was also too empty to appear truly hospitable: there were just a black leather couch, a coordinated armchair with a green cushion on it, a small table, a cupboard and a bookcase with plenty of old books. That was all. No ornaments, no mirrors, no paintings hanging from the wall, no television.

Again, he searched for the familiar shape of the god but he found no one. He felt uneasy, even if now he had something to cover himself with. But before, while he was kneeling at Loki's feet, he was sure the god would have killed him. Now that he was free and alone, he didn't understand Loki's intention and everything felt utterly wrong. A captive shouldn't be able to walk around freely with no one to guard him. After the routine of the last few weeks, the lack of restrictions and this new-found freedom was confusing him.

He went closer to one of the windows, following his instincts since he rationally wasn't looking for a way to escape from the house. Out of curiosity, he looked outside to see if he could recognize the place where he was being held but as soon as he saw his surroundings, he took a step back, astonished. He had seen the light blue sky and the sun, so bright his eyes hurt after a month in the darkness. But there wasn't anything else, just a bottomless waterfall and a bright abyss where nothing apart from the water existed instead of the solid ground.

He immediately tried to open the window even if he was sure it was sealed; but to his utter surprise, nothing stopped him. As soon as he opened it, he felt a light breeze on his face and he closed his eyes, enjoying the sensation he had almost forgotten while he was being held in that dark, windowless cell.

_Good. He didn't deserve it but it felt good._

A few seconds later, he opened his eyes again, trying to understand what he was seeing. He lacked the conviction to flee but the most natural thing to do was to test this apparent way out.

He cautiously extended his left arm out of the window, like he expected to be fulminated or burnt by whatever defense Loki had created for his home. Instead, he met an invisible barrier half way. It wasn't painful, it was just something impenetrable that didn't bulge an inch when he tried to move it.

Tony lowered his arm and stared again at the waterfall. If not for the terrestrial furniture, he would have believed he was on Asgard.

But Loki was a powerful sorcerer and knew how to create amazingly realistic illusions.

Suddenly, Tony ran to another window in the opposite side of the house, than to another, ignoring his aching body until he realized that the house seemed surrounded by waterfalls with no ground to see. Above it, there was just a limitless sky.

It seemed like the house had been built on the water and it was about to fall into the abyss.

An illusive spell, then.

He was probably still on Earth.

Not that this made a difference: he didn't have his suit, he was unarmed against an enemy who had proved himself stronger than the full powered Iron Man.

And he wasn't Iron Man anymore. He wasn't sure he wanted to fight the god or to try to escape from him.

He began exploring the house to silence these thoughts.

Apart from the living room and the bathroom, there were three other rooms. One was the kitchen and it was the first room he went in. He wasn't surprised to find it as clean as the rest of the place but it was so small, normal and terrestrial that it seemed absurd to associate it with Loki.

His empty stomach made him looking for something to eat but the fridge was empty as well and in the cupboard and in the drawers there were just pans, cutlery, seemingly untouched glasses and napkins. So, maybe Loki didn't need food like Thor did or he just used his magic to make it appear. Certainly, it was easier to think about Loki conjuring some food than Loki buying it in a shop like he was a normal person.

He exited the kitchen, ignoring the knives in one of the drawers. He still had two room to explore. He tried the closest one, but the door was locked and even with a well aimed kick it didn't break. Instead, a searing pain blossomed in his battered body because of the kick so he didn't try to smash the door a second time.

For a few moments, he stared at the closed door without moving. His old self would try to pick the lock, to find something to smash the door, to act, instead of remaining still because if Loki didn't want him to enter in this room it meant that there was something important or dangerous inside, or probably both. But now he was too tired to be curious and too defeated to find the strength to fight again.

He turned his back to the door and went to see if he was allowed in the last room.

Apparently he was since the last door was unlocked. He entered in what seemed like a perfectly normal bedroom: a closet, a desk, another little bookcase next to a tiny bedside table and a large bed with a black quilt. He tensed, even if there was no one in sight. This was Loki's bedroom and Tony wasn't sure the god would appreciate his presence in there.

However, the closet was an irresistible temptation. He gingerly opened it, looking for some clothes but, like the fridge, it was completely empty.

With a sigh, Tony returned to the living room. Now it was left only the front door.

Before trying it, he tested every window in the house, always finding the same invisible barrier and the same absurd waterfall and bright bottomless abyss.

Only then he reached for the front door, knowing he had just been stalling.

He had told himself he wanted to preserve his last hope for as long as he could but the truth was he was scared: what if he found a way to escape just to realize he didn't care and preferred remaining Loki's captive? What if he was so broken he couldn't stand the possibility of being free?

But it would be much worse to not even try.

Holding his breath, he reached for the doorknob. A little push, and the door opened.

Tony blinked. In front of his surprised eyes, there was the identical living room he was in. He passed the door and it was just like escaping from a house to step into its solid, three-dimensional reflection. He went back and forth a couple of times but the house he was trying to leave was always in front of him and at the same time behind his back.

He felt a light impulse to hint a smile because he should have known that Loki was too creative to trap him with just a barrier. But the smile died somewhere inside his mind before even reaching his lips.

He closed the door, feeling his chest oppressed by the familiar too heavy pain that always affected him when he had nothing to do and plenty of time to think.

_And he didn't want to think. Please, please don't think._

He almost didn't realize his steps had taken him back to the kitchen.

He remembered there were some knives in the top left drawer and before he could think, he grabbed the sharpest and the biggest one.

He hadn't had Natasha's or Clint's training which made them capable of killing with basically every object but he knew he could be dangerous with such a knife. He thoughtfully tested the blade with his thumb, then he realized what was doing and felt the sudden urge to laugh. A kitchen knife against a god.

He really began laughing, a violent, rough sound that scared him but he couldn't stop. Maybe a less egocentric man would have used the knife against himself, to atone for his faults. But his first and only though had been to use the knife against Loki. He was truly pathetic.

The laughter became bitter, sharper and more painful. His lungs hurt, his stomach protested against this strain of this hysterical hilarity but he continue laughing until he ran out of breath, until he almost broke into tears.

His trembling hand passed on his forehead while his laughter died in a sob.

He desperately needed a drink.

He put the knife back in its drawer and exited the kitchen, staggering from an exhaustion which wasn't only physical. He didn't have anything to do and his weakened body had reached its limit. After a rapid glance in the empty bedroom, where he almost expected to see a smirking Loki mocking him, he reached the living room again.

Still basking in the pleasurable and almost forgotten sensation of the towel on his naked skin, he sat down on the couch and waited for the god's return.

* * *

They had felt it. They had felt the raw power, the familiar blue energy belonging to their Master's new slave.

And then, they had felt _him_.

A green, bright fury which had annihilated their latest ally. But it didn't matter because now they knew for sure in which Realm the traitorous god was hiding.

The Other laughed into the void, followed by his companions.

_We are coming, little god. We are coming for you and there will be no death to save your pitiful soul. Prepare yourself to beg because you will not be able to do anything else before you will begin screaming._


	10. Chapter 9: Broken laughter

_Author's note:__ Thank you very much for your comments and the feedbacks, I really appreciate them. Special thanks go to Sara/cara-tanaka who always helps me and corrects my chapters._  
_I hope this update won't disappoint you._

_Warning:__ References to torture._

* * *

**Chapter 9: Broken laughter**

_He had fallen._

_For hours – days, months, years._

_Without an end, without any life._

_He had gone through such horrors that any other being would have been annihilated. Horrors capable of feasting on his rationality, bloody bite after bloody bite because not even an immortal god could pass through that dark, silent void unscathed. And it had been so cold that even the Jotun monster hidden beneath his Æsir skin had shivered._

_Then, he had landed. Hard. His bones were shattered, his skin was broken and bloody. But it was his mind the most damaged part of him and was still trying to put itself together from scraps. Wounded and exhausted from keeping his mind during the fall, he hadn't been able to stand while unfamiliar beasts were gathering around him._

_The darkness was clouding his mind more than his eyes and it had taken a few minutes to focus on them. Then, he had recognized them: they were Chitauri, the monsters who had been banished by all the Nine Realms and had been forgotten, he had read about in the Asgard's library._

_And as soon as he had realized that, the torture had begun._

_It was merciless. Sometimes the Chitauri tortured him until he wasn't there with his mind anymore, sometimes they stopped just to let him regain his lucidity. Sometimes they let him heal most of the wounds before they began breaking his bones, burning him, tearing off his flesh again. Then, their leader had come, a being who called himself The Other. He had spoken to Loki about Midgard, about the Tesseract, about his own mission to serve an immortal master who was in love with Death._

_The Other had never touched him but Loki hated him more than his direct tormentors._

_And one day, still laying in the dark, on that cold ground, he had promised himself that The Other would have been the first one to perish by his hands._

_He didn't know how much time had passed since his landing when he finally heard heavy steps approaching him. It could have been just days or thousands of years and he was still trying to stitch together his torn mind._

_Through the dizziness and the pain, he saw this new tormentor, perceiving a power so strong he almost couldn't breathe. He didn't need to see his face to know who he was._

_In front of him was Thanos._

_He stared at the Titan without even feeling the pain, meeting the eyes of one of the fewest beings that even the All-Father feared._

_Then, Thanos smiled._

"_You are very far from home, little god."_

_But Loki didn't have a home anymore. Odin had stolen it from him with his last refusal, his 'no, Loki' was still burning in the god's mind and it probably would never stop hurting him._

_(Fatherless runt, unwanted son, monster, Jotun)_

"_How are you thinking of saving your life?" the Titan asked with an amused expression._

_And Loki understood everything in the blink of an eye._

"_You need me." he murmured, with a sort of surprise because he hadn't realized it earlier._

_It was so clear, now. The Chitauri weren't trying to destroy him. They were just hurting him, trying to tame him and to make him easier to control. And Loki could already feel his wounds healing, the pain was just a reminder that he was still alive and he still had his power. It was still weakened from the fall into the void, but he felt it, it was slowly regenerating itself and soon it would flow again into his veins with the intensity that belonged only to the best sorcerer among the Nine Realms._

"_Do not make the mistake of believing you are allowed to bargain with me." Thanos replied, in a hiss which was ice and fire at the same time and carried unknown horrors and threats. But he hadn't denied Loki's words._

_When the Titan turned his back on him and disappeared in the darkness, someone laughed. And Loki shivered when he realized that that manic, broken laughter belonged to him. The Chitauri around him stared at him like he had become crazy but it didn't matter. What mattered was the fact that the only one who recognized his worth, who needed him and his power, while his fake family hadn't, had been Thanos. Thanos and the Chitauri._

_Among other monsters, he had finally found where he belonged._

Not like a stolen relic which laid forgotten in Thor's shadow, All-Father, but a weapon in the hands of Asgard's most dangerous enemy.

_And then, Loki laughed until he tasted blood in his mouth, until his throat became a burning knot of pain and his lungs hurt more than his broken ribs. Even when his strength vanished, leaving him as a broken, motionless body on the ground, he was still laughing._

_After that, no one touched him anymore._

_The Chitauri let him lie breathless in his own misery, believing him to have become crazy. But Loki's mind was more lucid than it had ever been since when he had let go on the abyss and even when the exhaustion took over, he didn't stop thinking._

_He had a plan, now. An aim. A way to escape from the darkness that had entered in his bones. And he was ready to shape the fate of two Realms with his own hands._

_When he regained consciousness, Thanos was bent over him._

"_Little god, are you ready to serve me?" the Titan asked, with a voice which was able to tear at his mind, like it had claws capable of piercing his head and his flesh._

_Loki opened his eyes and met Thanos' gaze without hesitation._

"_You give me an army." he murmured, his voice too hoarse to be recognized as his own "And I shall give you the Tesseract."_

* * *

Loki appeared in the living room after a couple of minutes.

He didn't wear his armor, nor did he have his scepter. The only things in his hands were a bunch of Stark's clothes, which had been taken directly from one of the billionaire's houses. He was hidden by an invisibility spell because he wanted to see how his prisoner would be while he thought he was alone.

Like a silent shadow, Loki waited for Stark to finish his shower. Then, he followed the mortal in his exploration of the house, looking for a glimpse of his old, arrogant enemy.

He was disappointed soon.

It took a few minutes for him to realize that the Avenger wasn't faking his apathetic behavior: Stark was broken, a useless, pathetic shadow of his former self. He seemed like he couldn't even keep his gaze from the floor, he moved without a real aim, like he was hunted by something or someone and he thought he would be killed if he stopped even for one second.

Even when he controlled all the windows and the front door, Stark didn't really try to find a way to escape. He was emotionless, like a man already resigned to die. And when he tried in vain to exit the house and understood that the spell prevented him to do so, on his face appeared an emotion suspiciously similar to relief.

Loki continued following him to the bedroom without revealing himself. He looked at him with approval when Stark tried to smash the door of his study. However, the mortal desisted too soon for his liking.

Then, the Avenger went to the kitchen, where he grabbed a knife. Loki smiled at the idea of a mortal going against him with such laughable weapon and felt a rush of anticipation.

_Yes, Stark. Fight me, show me your foolish arrogance so that I shall destroy it myself._

However, the man began laughing and his laughter made Loki clench his teeth because it was a too familiar sound.

He had to restrain himself to not grab his prisoner by the throat to end his life. He could feel his fingers itching to suffocate that broken, desperate sound in the most definitive way possible. Because it was too familiar, a too painful reminder of himself in the void and in Thanos' grasp.

Then, the mortal regained control, shivering like he had been teleported right to the frozen land of Jotunheim and put the knife back in the drawer. He went to the living room and sat on the couch, probably too tired to do something else. There, he fell asleep in a couple of minutes, curled on the edge of couch, with the towel as his only clothes.

Loki took notice of the bruises, the whipping marks on his back and the little circular burns. He would have been proud and satisfied of this testament of pain on his enemy's skin but he hadn't been the one who had done it to Stark and the thought just annoyed him more.

Still, the Avenger wasn't gravely wounded: his breathing was low and regular, his temperature was normal for his Midgardian standard and he didn't have horrible scars or marks or broken bones which would have hinted to some kind of blood-curling torture.

It was clear he had suffered but a little pain shouldn't have been enough to tame Stark's arrogance and to make him lose his will of fight. Loki remembered too well how Stark had kept fighting and mocking him even with broken bones during their past fights. Even with his hand on Stark's throat, while almost throttling him, Loki hadn't been able to silence him.

And now, the mortal was mute, apathetic, uninteresting. He wasn't the enemy capable of amuse him anymore.

He grimaced. Stark had been broken by someone else's hands and he didn't understand how.

Refraining himself from waking him to unleash his frustration on him, he shifted his gaze from the mortal's face, still tensed even in his sleep, to the strange contraption in his chest. It was another thing he was interested in but now wasn't the right time to get some answers.

After one last glance to Stark's sleeping figure, he put the clothes on the armchair and left the living room.

With just a thought, he materialized his scepter in his right hand.

Now there was the Tesseract's shard which needed his attention.

* * *

_Author's note 2__: Thank you for reading this chapter! Unfortunately I'm quite busy with some exams so I fear I won't be able to update as frequently as I'd like to but I'll try to at least update once a week._  
_See you next chapter, with Thor, some Avengers scenes and maybe some more Loki/Tony interactions (I know, the story's pace is very slow and they still haven't really spoken to each other but they'll get there)._


	11. Chapter 10: Reunion

_Author's note:__ I'm sorry I made you wait so many days for this update. I was stuck with an evil exam and I barely had any free time. Thank you so much for your lovely comments and feedbacks! And special thanks as always go to my beta Sara/cara-tanaka, who edited my chapter amazingly fast so I can update right now._

* * *

**Chapter 10: Reunion**

Thor's declaration left everyone speechless for several seconds. The god had Mjolnir in his hand but the strangely clean Asgardian clothes showed that he hadn't had a fight, yet. His face was tired, like he hadn't slept in an entire month and had aged ten years in just a few days.

"Thor! We thought you were on Asgard. What are you doing here?" Steve asked and all could hear the unspoken words 'without letting us know' from his voice.

The god lowered his hammer.

"I have been sent by my father. Heimdall perceived a power similar to the Tesseract in the hands of a mortal and I have been ordered to investigate." His voice became a tired murmur "But I was too late."

Clint had been staring at him since his arrival. Contrary to his usual self, Thor had a grim expression that spoke volumes of how well he was faring with his last duty. There was no trace of his usual smile, in its place there were just tiredness and bitterness and for a moment, Clint wondered if the god's change had other reasons apart from this new Tesseract problem.

Next to him, Clint saw Natasha narrowing her gaze, as she always did when she followed her own intuition.

"You mean, Loki perceived this power and came to get it?"

The archer almost winced at that name.

But even with the bitter taste of bile in his mouth because of the mention of Thor's bastard sibling, Clint couldn't deny his approval towards the redheaded spy. He had always been amazed by her ability to understand what the people didn't say and to put all the unimportant details together until she understood exactly what was going on.

Thor's gaze lowered, his eyes staring at the floor, like he didn't have the strength to behave like his proud, easygoing former self.

"I fear so."

And suddenly, Clint's mouth was too dry and he had to breathe deeply to avoid the sickness which was spreading in his gut.

"You sure it's Loki's work?" He asked Thor, his voice sounding more hostile than he had wanted to.

It wasn't the first time that the Avengers' and Loki's path met after the Chitauri invasion. They had fought against each other many times, during the last year but Clint still couldn't think of him without feeling a burning anger and, at the same time, a nauseating fear and humiliation, like the magic that had violated his mind were still inside him, ready to make him Loki's willing slave.

The horrifying feeling of belonging to someone else, body and soul, never ceased to torment him because he remembered everything. Loki hadn't erased Clint's personality, he had just bent the archer to his will, to become Clint's priority, his true and only god. And that had been much worst than a simple brainwashing: even when he had killed his S.H.I.E.L.D.'s allies, he had always been Clint. He had thought as Clint, lived as Clint, felt as Clint. He had always remained himself expect from his urge to gain Loki's approval because he had craved it like his one and only need. Clint had been a slave and had been totally glad about it.

It had been the worst violation he could imagine and he would never forgive the god.

Trying to suppress the hatred he felt towards Loki, he shifted his gaze from the wall to Thor, who was nodding at Natasha.

"The reason I was summoned back on Asgard was that my brother had stolen a powerful artifact. It is named as the Casket of the Ancient Winter, the heart of Jotunheim." The god pointed with Mjolnir to the ice cage where Schmidt's body was trapped. "That is its frightening power."

Clint clenched his fists.

_How come those goddam gods couldn't even control Loki? Or at least, couldn't they fucking avoid giving the bastard new weapons to bring chaos on Earth?_

He took a deep breath and swallowed the bile and the sickness that had threatened to fill his mouth.

"Bad guys fighting each other? Good news, for me." He said, with a forced smile he knew it wouldn't deceive Natasha.

"If Tony weren't in the middle of it." Steve scolded him, with a serious expression.

Confused, Thor took a look around.

"Where is Tony Stark?"

Steve's stern expression turned grim.

"He was captured a month ago, after you left for Asgard. This was where Hydra was holding him."

The god looked surprised, then his expression showed a glimpse of sadness which couldn't mean anything good and he shook his head.

"I explored this building before your arrival but I did not see the Man of Iron. Here, there are just fallen mortals I do not know."

Natasha was the first one to react, while the others were still trying to accept these words.

"I'm going to take a look around." She said. And with that, she was gone without waiting for an answer.

Clint just spared her a glance, since he was sure she could defend herself well enough even without them.

Next to him, Steve was explaining to Thor what had happened since his departure but Clint was too focused on his own anger and hatred towards Loki to listen properly to the conversation. Tony wasn't there and what was worse, Loki had been there before them. With a new weapon. A fucking godly artifact which the other gods hadn't been able to protect.

He took a couple of steps away, trying to ease his frustration before he unloaded it against the thunder god – and he knew he shouldn't have any ill feelings towards him but Thor reminded him of his little shit of a brother and of the other gods' failure to keep Loki caged.

To distract himself, he went closer to Bruce, who was still studying the strange block of ice.

"What do you think? He asked him, after a minute.

The doctor sighed.

"It still isn't melting." He took off his glasses to clean them with the hem of his shirt. "I fear it will be troublesome, now that Loki has this new power."

"You mean, more troublesome than usual?"

Bruce attempted a depressed smile.

"Yeah."

"Wonderful, just what we needed! A crazy, psychopath god with fucking magic powers who now can also freeze people at will." Clint couldn't avoid glaring at Thor, even if he knew it wasn't his fault.

But he was tired of those gods who couldn't even restrain one of their own kind. It almost seemed like they _enjoyed_ being fooled by Loki. And with Tony lost who knows where, he couldn't control himself, especially now, after their hopes of finding him here had been so painfully destroyed.

_Why are we always the ones who have to put up with the gods' shit and mistakes?_

Before he said something he would later regret, Natasha was back.

No one heard her, she just appeared among them like she had never gone away.

"No survivors and no Stark. I checked all the dead bodies, he's not here." She spoke without any emotions and her face was impenetrable and collected but Clint knew her well enough to recognize the way she tightened her finger on the gun. "One of the cells has been used recently, though. And there was no body in it, just some dried blood."

It could be both good or bad news.

"The prisoner you interrogated said that he was sure Tony was still alive three days ago." Steve commented. "So we have two possibilities: some Hydra agents are still alive and had Tony transferred in another location or they killed him recently and disposed of his body." And the super soldier paled under his mask while saying the last words, even if his voice didn't falter.

Natasha hardened her gaze.

"Or Loki took him."

Thor turned to look at her.

"I do not understand. Why would my brother take the Man of Iron?"

Clint tensed, fighting the urge to shout at him. Thor was a friend and he respected the god's anachronistic sense of honor and his forthright mind but every time he referred to Loki as his brother, Clint wanted to punch him.

"If you found one of your enemies wounded and helpless, what would you do?" Natasha asked the god.

Thor looked unsure, like he were recalling the Asgardian honor code in his mind, in hope to find the right answer in it.

"I would use him to gain information." Clint answered in his stead. "Pity there's no survivor to interrogate."

At his side, Steve suddenly tensed. His gaze pointed to the block of ice, his lips were closed in a thin line and his fists were clenched so tight they almost tremble.

"We can ask him."

Before Clint could express how absurd the idea sounded to him, Bruce slowly nodded.

"Steve is right. He and Schmidt have a similar metabolism. If Steve has survived for seventy years in hibernation, maybe we can have our prisoner to interrogate."

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_Author's note2__: No Loki and no Tony but the next chapter will be all about them. Also, I'm finally on holidays, no more exams for a while, so I should be able to update again in a few days. Thanks again for the comments, the favs and the follows, hope you enjoyed this chapter._


	12. Chapter 11: Studying the enemy

**Chapter 11: Studying the enemy**

_Schmidt was smiling while staring at him._

"_I suggest you to not do that."_

"_Sorry but I'm not used to following my enemies' advices" Tony replied, with a shrug._

_And then, he released the blast._

Tony opened his eyes with a gunshot ringing in his head.

For a moment, while his lungs refused to breathe, he was sure he was still in the dark cell where Schmidt kept him prisoner, with the heavy chains on his wrists and his throat constricted by the cold collar around his neck. But he could feel something soft under him and he smelled clean, like he hadn't for weeks. Nothing was binding him. He still felt pain in all of his body but he didn't have any new wounds and instead of blood and dirt, he smelled a pleasing soap on his skin.

He blinked, focusing his gaze on his surroundings and as soon as he recognized the aseptic living room he was in, he remembered what had happened.

_Loki._

The god was nowhere in sight but there were clothes on the free spot of the couch. He stared at them with great surprise. Then, his surprise turned into disbelief when he grabbed one of the t-shirts and recognized it immediately as one of his own. It should have been absurd but he wasn't wrong: the t-shirt had even the hole for the Arc Reactor. And even the pants and the boxers looked familiar.

Creepy but it wouldn't be the first time Loki enjoyed playing with someone's mind.

He discarded the wet towel and put on his clothes without wondering if it was a trap or a trick. He simply basked in the wonderful sensation of having something to cover himself; some actual clothes and not just a towel. Even if the clothes rubbed on his wounds, it was too good to wear something after entire weeks of nakedness. The t-shirt, the boxer, the pants felt kind of consoling and a part of him was oddly grateful to Loki for that. The rest of him just wanted to think about nothing.

Sharpening his gaze to see through the dim light of what seemed to be a late evening, he stood up and went to the kitchen where he fetched a glass of water. He drank while looking outside through one of windows. The dark sky still had some traces of the sunset, so it seemed Loki's spell didn't change the normal alternation of day and night.

A stomach's cramp remind him of how long he hadn't have something to eat. For a moment, he allowed himself to hope that Loki, together with the clothes, had also brought him some food but when he opened the fridge and the pantry, he found them still empty.

He left the kitchen strangling a low sigh.

The anguish he felt at the idea of remaining alone with his thoughts made him reach the bedroom. As strange as it would be the fact that the god had returned just to ignore him, Tony was almost certain that Loki was still in the house. And he couldn't imagine any other room where he could find him.

His thoughts proved to be corrected when, after a brief hesitation in front of the half closed door, he opened it and entered the bedroom. Loki was there.

He knew it was dangerous, like entering the proverbial lion pit but he really didn't care.

He took a step forward, staring at the god without making a noise. Loki was sitting cross-legged on the bed, dressed in his usual leather pants but barefooted and with only an undershirt covering his torso. Judging by the green light that surrounded him, the only light in the room, he was busy with some kind of spell, probably a complex one, since he had his eyes closed. His scepter was lying on his legs and in front of him was floating what seemed like a bright blue pearl. The god's hands were open and were surrounding the pearl without touching it; there were several strands of green magic generated from his fingers which seemed to hit the pearl in a non violent way.

Tony's gaze remained focused on the god, while he was unsure of what to do. If he hadn't found the clothes, he would have sworn Loki had forgotten he was there. Anyway, it was clear that the god didn't care about his presence at the moment. He wondered why the god had taken him if he didn't seem interested in torturing him to death or in extorting useful information from him. This strange behavior was the opposite Tony had expected and he didn't understand it. But thinking about it, Loki had always been unpredictable.

He was about to return to the living room when the god turned his head towards him, without speaking nor interrupting his spell.

"Remain still and do not make any noises." He ordered Tony, sounding threatening and commanding even with this low murmur.

Tony let himself slide on the floor, with his back against the wall. It hurt, since he was still wounded and his back still carried the whipping marks and the burns but he was too tired to remain upright without the aid of the wall and the pain was perfectly bearable comparing to the actual torture.

Ignoring it, he focused again on the god, studying him with just a hint of curiosity. Thanks to the light of the spell, he was able to see his face even through the night's darkness. He had never seen Loki so concentrated. He also noticed that the god's hands were moving slightly, his fingers tracing delicate patterns in the air while the green strands extended until they reached the scepter, connecting it to the blue pearl.

In Loki's presence, the silence wasn't so unbearable since he could concentrate all his thoughts on the god instead of on the horrors lingering in his soul. He studied all of Loki's movements with a light surprise. He was used to the crazy, psychopathic god who fought while laughing and threatening; he was used to the menacing and amused expression Loki had showed when they had managed to capture him – when he had allowed them to capture him – and now, it was strange to see him motionless and collected like this, with a distant expression on his face and his lips sealed in concentration. If Tony hadn't seen his chest moving at every breath, he would have thought he was staring to a valuable statue of the god.

It was easy to forget he was an extremely powerful sorcerer when they exchanged verbal banter and hits during a fight, when Loki laughed like a manic, crazy asshole and Tony was happy to try to take him down with his suit – never really succeeding but at least he had kept trying.

Now, Loki really seemed like a deity, a too powerful master of the arcane with centuries of experience in developing his skills and magic. His composure seemed unreal. It made him look like an ancient, mysterious being with a limitless power and for the first time, Tony really wondered how old Loki was.

With his magic enveloping his body like a green flame, the scepter pulsating of power and the blue pearl floating in front of him, he seemed more like a god than Thor ever did.

Tony's eyes shifted from the green magic to the god's concentrated face. If Thor was all physical prowess and strength and muscles, Loki was the agility of a snake, ready to strike at the first occasion and too fast to be stopped. During the fights, he moved with the same fluid, graceful movements Natasha possessed and was even faster. However, now that Tony could study him, he realized Loki was stronger than it seemed at first glance: the god's muscles on his naked arms were lean but well defined and Tony wondered if Loki had just used his physical strength and not his magic when he had crushed his suit barehanded. He could still feel the unmovable grip on his neck, slowly choking him, bending the metal of his suit like it had been nothing.

Tony briefly recollected all the past fights, the times when Loki managed to face all the Avengers without getting killed or maimed, the time in Stuttgart when he almost defeated Steve with frightening ease and without using his magic, the time when he had been smashed by the Hulk and he managed to stand up in a matter of minutes...

No, Loki could be physically weaker than Thor but he was not weak by any means.

The green light suddenly doubled its intensity and Tony shifted his gaze towards the pearl. Now there were two of them, one a lot bigger than the other. Loki moved one of his fingers and the smaller pearl vanished. Then, the god's face tensed and the green magic completely engulfed the blue light of the remaining pearl while the air became strangely heavy and infused with some sort of energy which made Tony's skin prickle. Just when he was starting to feel uneasy, a green flash blinded him for a moment, making him lift an arm to shield his eyes. A second later, the pearl was gone.

He had to blink twice to focus his gaze again and to realize that the second pearl, instead of vanishing, had been embedded in the scepter, where it shone with a blue-green shade.

The god stared at his weapon, panting, in a testament of how taxing that spell had been. Then, he curled his lips in a satisfied smile. It lasted for a couple of seconds before all was replaced by his usual impenetrable expression and Loki, with a sudden movement that made Tony startle, pointed the scepter at him, the threatening tip against the mortal's throat.

Tony felt his pulse accelerate while the weapon brushed his neck and pressed against his skin just enough to let him know how sharp and deadly it was.

He tensed, waiting for the final blow. He didn't deem it beneath Loki to let a prisoner live for half a day, lulling him into a false calm with a shower and some clothes, and then to kill him just for the fun of it, without a reason nor a warning.

Tony waited for one second, two seconds, three seconds, with his gaze fixated on the mattress. But the scepter still wasn't killing him. The blade just brushed his skin without spilling blood, like the god had yet to decide where to stab him.

The uneasiness in his chest was growing at each passing second. Tony was tired and sick of this game, of this waiting. He was surprised when he felt a glimpse of irritation towards Loki through his apathy.

_What was the god waiting for?_

He wanted everything to end. It didn't matter if Loki let him live or killed him, he just wanted that the god finally decided what to do to him.

Without drawing back his scepter, Loki stood up with his usual graceful movements. Then, he applied more pressure against Tony's chin, to force him to meet his gaze.

"Are you not asking me anything?"

Tony stared at the god with an intense surprise, before understanding what he meant. He hesitated: he was hungry, since Schmidt let him have only one meal a day and that day Loki had arrived before he received his food. But the truth wasn't an easy answer to give the god. Tony wasn't sure how much of it was pride, how much it was the fear to show a weakness that would make him be tortured more and how much it was a self destructive behavior. But he couldn't answer affirmatively.

Slowly, he shook his head.

The god seemed to harden his face but maybe it was just an illusion created by the shadows.

"Then I suggest you sleep without making a sound."

The weapon left Tony's throat, allowing him to lower his gaze. Then, a chain much lighter than the ones Schmidt had used to bind him, materialized around his right wrist, binding it to a metal ring which had just appeared on the floor.

"You shall not disturb me or I will make you regret it for the rest of the night."

After vanishing his scepter, Loki returned to the bed without even taking the leather pants off. It seemed he had exhausted all his energy since as soon as he lied on the center of the mattress, he fell asleep.

Tony searched for a less uncomfortable position on the floor, lying with an arm under his head like a substitute for a cushion. The chain was pressing against the wound on his wrist but fortunately it wasn't too tight and it was long enough to let him sit and even stand if he wanted to.

Despite his tiredness, he remained with his eyes open in the dark, focused on the sleeping god, wondering what his intentions were.

Loki hadn't tortured him yet, nor had he interrogated him on the other Avengers, on S.H.I.E.L.D. or on Earth in general. He hadn't even given him orders apart from being silent and not to disturb him.

For the first time since what seemed like centuries, Tony wondered what would happen to him.

* * *

_Author's note:__ Please, let me know what you thought about the chapter. Next one will arrive in a few days, with some more Loki's and Tony's interactions. I want to thank so much Sara/cara-tanaka for her help as my beta. And thank you all for your comments and your feedbacks, I really appreciate them._


	13. Chapter 12: Awakening

_Thank you so much for your feedbacks! I didn't expect so many comments and I'm glad you are so interested in my fic! You made my day. And special thanks go to Sara/cara-tanaka, for her precious help with all of these chapters._

_Warnings:__ PTSD and references to torture_

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**Chapter 12: Awakening**

_The cave was dark and too hot to let him breathe easily through the sand and the dust. The stink of blood was all around him and it was difficult not to retch, not to expel the omnipresent bile in his throat. The silence was so deep and absolute, it annihilated his own mind, his memories, his hopes, and was just intensifying his terror._

_In an instinctive gesture, he lifted his hand to touch his chest and he barely managed to choke a cry when his fingers met a hole instead of the reassuring surface of the Arc Reactor. Now, he didn't have the very thing which could keep him alive._

_Then, came the voices, the rough laugh, the stink of death, of sweat, of dirt. There were callous fingers on his neck, his damaged heart was trying to escape from his chest, his nerves were on fire and he was trying so desperately to free himself – and he already knew he wouldn't be able to. He would only prolong his suffering and their amusement._

_Then, he was underwater, screaming silently while the cold invaded his soul without extinguishing the fire in his lungs._

_Then, he was in the desert, forcing himself to keep walking, to always take another step, to refuse to die in that burning ocean of sand._

_Then, he was facing Schmidt, his eyes focused on the children while he was too arrogant to stop the horror._

_Then, he was with Rhodey, during his own birthday when he was dying and fighting him, suit versus suit, with the alcohol in his veins that wasn't really able to mitigate his desperation._

_Then, he was lying on the ground beneath his friend and all around him there were the children's dead bodies while he was screaming without making any sounds._

_And Rhodey looked at his face, and he was Rhodey, he was Loki, he was Schmidt, he was every one of the children._

"_You are not the protector you thought you were. You don't deserve the suit. You are not worthy of being Iron Man. Pathetic little mortal without a heart, who built a suit to pretend to be a hero and to fill the hole in his chest."_

_And the freezing water returned to invade his lungs while he screamed._

Tony woke up with his own screams echoing in his head. He was sitting on a hard floor but his mouth was so dry it seemed like he had swallowed sand for hours, like he were in Afghanistan again, waiting for Rhodey. But this time, no one would arrive, no one would save him. This time, he was alone, he could only fall, fall without a pause, without a bottom to reach.

He blinked, trying to slow down his heartbeat.

It took him several minutes to realize that he wasn't in the desert anymore, nor was he in the cave, feeling the unbearable pain where the first, rudimental Arc Reactor was, the fear that someone could rip it off from his chest...

His breath was coming too fast, he was about to hyperventilate but he fought against the fear the nightmare had left in his mind. He was used to it, he knew how to calm himself.

When he managed to actually look at his surroundings – a clean bedroom without a lot of furniture, the light coming from two windows, the floor where he had slept, without any dust – he found himself meeting a pair of familiar green eyes.

He took a deep breath, trying so hard not to tremble while he still had his mind filled with the images of his nightmare. He knew the god could see the fear on his face. His hair was wet with sweat, he was lightly panting and the scream he had managed to hold back was still stuck in his throat.

He felt and looked vulnerable; however, Loki didn't say a word. He just stared at him with a cold detachment that made Tony feel like an experiment; but he wasn't threatening him nor did he seemed to be in a talkative mood.

Not wanting to speak either, Tony returned to lay on the floor, turning his back on him while he still felt the cold sweat down his shoulders and on his forehead.

He was used to having nightmares. He had been having them since he had been captured by the Ten Ring. After he became Iron Man, they had been less frequent but the experience with Schmidt had made the trauma arise again and had left him with new nightmares to be tormented with.

He breathed deeply and slowly, trying not to make a sound.

In his former cell, that dark and cold place, he had had nightmares half of the nights but he had been alone so he could compose himself and calm down before anyone saw him like that. Now, he felt the god's gaze burning his back.

He touched his chest, where what was left of his heart seemed like it wanted to escape from his ribcage. But he felt a little better when his fingers met the hard surface of his greatest creation: it was the testament of him not being in Afghanistan. Of him being alive. He was the crazy, homicidal god's captive but he wasn't trapped in a dirty cave, with his chest split open and the shrapnel that was killing him inch after inch.

He was alive. In Loki's hands, but alive. And if the god decided to kill him, at least he wouldn't die in a who-knows-where place where everything smelled like sand and blood.

When he finally managed to breathe normally and to make his panic attack recede, he concentrated in checking what his conditions were. It was to distract himself from the worst thoughts, he knew it but checking his wounds seemed to be a better idea than freeing the memories he was trying so desperately to forget.

He began from his torso. His back hurt, more because of the tortures than because of the night spent on the floor. His wrists were burning, especially the chained one but they weren't bleeding anymore. His whole body was covered in bruises and small cigarette burns but he didn't have any broken bones and he actually felt a little better than the day before. However, his stomach was so empty it hurt.

He sighed, wondering if Loki simply wanted him to starve to death or if it was an attempt to make him talk and surrender. To _beg_ for some food.

It had been almost a couple of days since his last meal. Two days. Forty-eight hours. Two thousand eight hundred and eighty minutes. One hundred and seventy-two thousand eight hundred seconds.

A normal, perfectly healthy man could survive even a week without food, even two or three. But he wasn't a perfectly healthy man, as the weight on his chest reminded him at every breath. How many seconds were there in a week?

The sound of a rustling blanket interrupted his train of thought before he could calculate that. He turned, sitting up with a grimace when his aching limbs tensed because of the movement.

Without sparing a glance on him, the god stood up and exited the room. A few seconds later, Tony heard the unmistakable outpour of water.

_So, even a god has to take a shower_. Then he remembered that Thor, when he was on Earth, used to take one shower a day, delighted in what he considered a little domestic waterfall. But somehow, Loki always seemed like he was distant from material needs and to imagine him in a shower like a normal human being, was strange, especially after the day before, when Tony had seen him at his best of his divine status.

Once, he would have made some jokes about how even Loki had the same needs as the lowly mortals he despised so much. Now, he just let a shadow of a small, ironic smile play on his lips.

It took several long minutes before Loki came back. He was completely dry, with his hair already slicked back and his leather clothes on in his usual appearance.

This time, the god's gaze actually shifted to him and after a couple of seconds, the chain on Tony's wrist disappeared with a flicker of Loki's fingers.

"Stark." Loki was smiling, now, like he were studying an unexpected gift. "Are you ready to talk to me about your comrades and about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s defenses?"

Tony tensed while standing up but didn't answer. Instead, he stared at the floor. For a part of his mind, that question was comforting: now, he didn't have to face the uncertainty of what Loki wanted. The god would probably torture him but it would be a familiar situation that didn't suffocate him with the fear of an unknown danger. He just hoped Loki would use his magic and his scepter without using water like it had happened in Afghanistan –_ the freezing water on his face, a thousand frozen needles on his skin that made him scream, the unbearable pain in his chest, where his heart was exposed, his desperate attempt to not move so that the battery that was keeping him alive wouldn't be wet, and I can't breathe, I can't breathe, I can't breathe..._

He closed his eyes, holding his breath until he saw black spots. Then, he breathed again, deeply and slowly, stopping the panic attack the way he had learned during the past few years.

When he opened his eyes, he was again in control of himself.

He looked at the god with a glimpse of surprise. He had expected Loki to take advantage of his weakness, to smirk, to laugh, to mock him. But the god's smile was gone and on his face, there was only an unreadable expression.

"As I thought, you do not seem disposed of collaborating." Even the god's voice was emotionless. "However, I wonder if your choice depends on a foolish loyalty towards your comrades or if you are simply too stubborn for your own good."

As a response, Tony pursed his lips. He waited for a painful retaliation but Loki didn't hit him. Instead, he stopped looking at him and went to the small library, taking one of the books and started skimming through the pages.

Soon, the god seemed like he found what he was looking for, since he read a couple of pages. When he closed the book, the golden armor was already appearing on his body. Loki turned again towards him and Tony must have showed his confusion since he smirked.

"Now I have no time to play with you. You shall wait for my return."

His stomach answered for him before Tony could react to his words, growling with its need of food.

Loki's smile widened and he came closer, towering above him with his superior height. He was in full battle regalia except for the lack of the scepter and Tony, who was without his suit and with only a t-shirt and the pants, felt even more vulnerable and helpless.

"I hope you can feed yourself, Stark, because I certainly will not prepare your breakfast."

And without waiting for an answer, Loki was gone.

Tony cussed silently inside his mind for several moments, temporarily forgetting his self loathing, his guilt, his apathy. Then, he went to the kitchen, with the sudden hope that the god's words had been more than just mocking and derision.

When he opened the fridge, he almost smiled in relief: it was full of food, as well as the pantry, as he discovered a couple of seconds later. In the end, it seemed like the god didn't want him to starve.

Caught by a suspicion which was a half hope, he went to the bedroom and opened the closet, finding it full of his own clothes. He took a t-shirt and a pair of black boxers, wanting to take a bath, now that he was alone. But soon, he dropped them on the bed and returned to the kitchen. He was too hungry, he would take the bath later.

Ignoring his instinctive impulse of ordering Jarvis some breakfast, he took food from the fridge and from the pantry and began to eat.

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_Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think about this chapter and if you prefer sooner some Loki's and Tony's parts or some Avengers' parts. See you next week!_


	14. Chapter 13: A lost prince

_Thank you so much for the feedback, you are awesome! And special thanks go to Sara/cara-tanaka for her work as a beta, thank you darling!_

_Since I couldn't reply via PM to the review to the unlogged readers, I thought I could answer to them here if you don't mind._

_So, __Vespren__: Thank you! In the end, I decided to postpone the next Loki and Tony interaction to the next chapters, but if you look at the final note of this chapter I hope you'll be happy :)_

_Guest__: Thank you very much, you're too kind! Now it's too soon for the Loki/Avengers confrontantion but I can assure you that there will be one ;) _

_About this chapter, since it seemed like a part of you wanted Loki and Tony and a part of you wanted to know about the Avengers and Schmidt's defrosting, I put a bit of both, hoping you won't be disappointed_

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**Chapter 13: A lost prince**

The block of ice where the mortal was trapped still wasn't melting, despite the strange Midgardian contraption which was warming the room to the point he was sweating like he had been fighting for hours.

After an animated debriefing with Nick Fury, where he was asked about the Casket and about Loki's new power, he had gone to the room where the frozen enemy had been moved to and now, he was still there, his gaze fixated on the ice and his thoughts focused on his brother.

It seemed like Loki was still an incomprehensible enigma, after all.

His brother had always been able to surprise him, to act differently from him and from any other warriors of Asgard. But now, he really was a stranger. He brought chaos and didn't follow any rules, aiming towards a goal Thor couldn't see nor could he comprehend. And every time they met, it seemed like Loki took another step away from him, basking in the rage, in the grudge and in the desire of revenge which was fogging his mind.

Thor clenched his fists. He couldn't think that his brother was lost forever, that he was too crazy, too evil, too broken to return to Asgard.

But his mother trusted him and Thor himself couldn't abandon Loki because even after Odin had told him the truth about his origin, even after the crimes he had perpetrated, Thor still considered Loki his brother. Loki was one of the foundations of the place he called home. He was ready to do everything to have his brother back at his side.

_The humans think us immortal. Should we test that?_

This memory hurt him. It hurt and burned more than a Jotun's touch, more than the disappointed stare Odin had given him when he had banished him. However, he couldn't avoid the thought that Loki hadn't really wanted to kill him. Loki knew him perfectly, after all they had grown up together, and knew what he was able to do with Mjolnir. And if he had wanted to end his life, he wouldn't have pierced him with such a little knife during the Chitauri invasion. He would have conjured a sharp dagger or would have used magic to pierce him from side to side, instead of leaving only a small scar on his skin that was one of the more painful testaments of his hatred towards him.

And that hadn't been the only strange thing about Loki. When he was guiding the Chitauri, his brother seemed like he lacked conviction. Even if he had spent centuries underestimating Loki's power, he knew his brother hadn't fought seriously against the Avengers.

Loki could have killed more than a half of their group without any real effort because, apart from Banner and himself, the other Avengers didn't stand a chance against a god: without his armor, Tony Stark was weak and defenseless, like any other human. The archer and Lady Natasha were very good warriors but their bodies were frail and couldn't compete against the strength of a Jotun. And Steve Rogers was stronger than any other Midgardians but he still didn't pose a threat for someone like Loki.

However, his brother hadn't killed any of them. And now that he had the Casket, Loki could have taken advantage of his absence to do some serious damage to the Midgardians and to the Avengers but he hadn't even fought against them during those weeks.

Sometimes, when he allowed himself to have some optimistic thoughts that his companions called foolery, Thor wanted to hope that these little details meant that Loki didn't really aim to conquer Midgard. Sometimes, he just wanted to hope that his brother could still be saved.

Also in the place of Loki's last apparition, there was something wrong: the missing arm of the Midgardian had been found on the floor and it seemed like the skin of the hand had been peeled off. Bruce Banner had told him that Loki had maimed the human after having defeated him and he didn't understand why his brother should have done something like that.

A sound disrupted his thoughts and he shifted his gaze towards the ice. He couldn't wait for the human to wake up so that he could interrogate him about his brother and he smiled when he understood what that sound had been. In the frozen prison the human was in, a crack had appeared.

* * *

He had arrived to the place protected by the invisibility spell which shielded him even from Heimdall's gaze. It hadn't been too difficult to enter in Asgard even if it seemed like Odin had adopted some new defenses after he had taken the Casket.

Loki was almost disappointed by the lack of true obstacles because even with the improved defenses, he had managed to reach the relic's hall without risking his life. And that stung. It was like the All-Father was still underestimating him.

When he began looking for the Tesseract, however, he had to hide a smile, realizing how wrong he had been in his last, frustrated thought: the artifact was not there. It took him a couple of hours to discover where the Tesseract was being held. And then, he truly smiled because for once, it could be that Odin was really considering him a threat.

He used two other protective spells, so that only the fewest of the best sorcerers of the Nine Realms would be able to detect him and maybe to harm him. Then, he went to the most hidden and the oldest branches of Yggdrasil, where he had felt an almost imperceptible glimpse of the Tesseract. He found himself staring at a naked, polished rock.

He took a step forward, knowing that he was as invisible and impalpable as thoughts were. A sudden vibration under him made him stop. He dashed back just in time to avoid the white flame which erupted in the exact place he had been just an instant before.

He materialized his scepter, while the rush of adrenaline sharpened his senses.

In front of him, three figures appeared. They didn't have a real body, they just had the outline of an humanoid shape, with a color similar to the one the cortex had. He recognized them at first sight: the Firstborns, beings of magic and of power, which were born from Yggdrasil's lymph and couldn't leave that place. They guarded the Tree's branches on Asgard and they were their most powerful and dangerous defenders because they took their power from the Tree itself.

_Beautiful, All-Father_.

He smiled, strengthening his hold on his scepter.

Despite all of his concealment spells, the Firstborns were staring at him with invisible eyes.

"Go away, fallen prince." murmured one of them, or maybe all of them together, with a voice similar to the rustle of the leaves.

He had only a moment of hesitation but it was enough. Faster than he expected, a root appeared at his feet, trying to bind him to the ground. He jumped just in time, avoiding it thanks to his reflexes and immediately he had to cast a barrier to protect himself from a wind so sharp, it could slash a tree. They weren't really lethal attacks for a sorcerer of his caliber but he knew that if he didn't retreat, the fight would become more cruel and dangerous.

Like the Firstborns knew what he was thinking, they launched another attack: a white sun exploded in front of him, reaching for him with a frightening amount of power. His mind searched for a protective spell against this magic but it was too late: the words were stuck in his thoughts, too many to be pronounced in this little time, and the spell was too powerful to cast it just with his thoughts alone.

He tensed, while waiting for the impact with the white energy, confiding on his own resistance while his scepter brightened. Then, his magic exploded all around him, answering to his call faster than it had ever done before.

A shield surrounded him just before the white energy reached him. The impact was so violent he was almost forced to take a step back and all around him the earth trembled but the shield held on. He wasn't wounded, the Firstborns' magic had been stopped without even the need to talk aloud for his spell. He had just _thought_ that complicated spell and the shield had arose.

He laughed, feeling a pure, enraptured pleasure. The power coming from the scepter was amazing: he could feel it flowing in his veins together with the feeling of being invincible. He had spent hours trying to make the Tesseract's energy his own, to bind it to his own essence, to the magic he already possessed. And now, he realized it had worked better than he expected.

The Firstborns came closer. They were more cautious but still lethal. Far from here, he perceived Heimdall's gaze trying to locate him through his concealment and another, heavier gaze with only one eye, searching for him.

Even if he had arrived only a few minutes before, it seemed like the fight wouldn't be unnoticed.

He curved his lips in a smile.

He could stay. He could stay and fight for hours, discovering how much more powerful he had become and if he could defeat the most dangerous defenders of his people – _no, not his people. Odin's people, Thor's people. Never his._

It was tempting. He could show the All-Father and the Æsir that he was powerful enough to defy the Firstborns, to prove himself worthy, to make them realize they had lost the most powerful sorcerer Asgard had ever had...

But he had already gained what he wanted so there was no need for him to remain here further. If Thanos wanted to steal Odin's most precious relic, he had to face the Firstborns and the entirety of Asgard.

The Tesseract was really safe.

* * *

_Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think about the chapter. I'll try to update again during this week and next two chapters will both be about Loki and Tony._


	15. Chapter 14: Haunted

_Thank you all for the feedbacks, I'm so glad you enjoy my story. And special thanks go to Sara/cara-tanaka, my amazing beta, for her help._

_Guest:__ Thank you for your comment! In this chapter there will be only Tony and Loki so I hope it's good for you._  
_Here is the new chapter, I hope you'll like it._

* * *

**Chapter 14: Haunted**

_They had been following him for the last hour. To be honest, _he_ was the one who had let them follow him. And after a whole year of more or less frequent fights, he knew who would reach him first._

"_Are you here alone, Stark?" he commented while the mortal landed behind him "I begin to suspect that you are interested in me."_

_Instead of taking advantage of his apparent distraction, the Avenger took a step closer, showing his omnipresent boldness._

"_I'm sorry to let your ego down, Harry Potter, but I only wanted to win the 'who's gonna kick Loki's ass' prize of the week."_

_Loki turned to face him and attacked him with a little blast of green magic, nothing serious, that the mortal managed to avoid._

"_If you really believe you have a hope of defeating me, I am not the one who has ego problems, Tony Stark."_

_The Avenger lifted his helmet plate to show him a fake adoring expression._

"_You've used my name, I'm almost moved. Next time what will it be? Will you gift me some flowers?"_

_Loki smiled._

"_If I am not wrong, on Midgard there is the custom to bring flowers at funerals." he said, before attacking again, and Stark had to jump in the air to avoid being hit._

"_Son of a bitch." the mortal commented, with a voice that was more amused than hostile. A moment later, he shot Loki with the bright weapon of his hands but the magic shield surrounding the sorcerer held on "And by the way, I prefer a box of chocolate. Alcoholic chocolate."_

_After leaving an illusion to face the mortal's attack, Loki managed to sneak behind him. He chose a powerful but non lethal spell to hit him with because he really didn't want him dead, at the moment._

"_Even if you are foolishly convinced of it, I have no intention of courting you." he murmured, before releasing the spell that sent the Avenger crashing against a building._

_Surprisingly, Stark managed to stand up and lifted off in the sky before Loki could hit him again, the red and gold armor a little damaged but still functioning._

"_But you would like to, wouldn't you?" the Avenger said, winking, while landing a few feet from him._

_He still hadn't lowered his face plate – an unforgivable mistake._

_Loki attacked him with an illusion before appearing at his side, ready to strike him with the scepter. Tony was ready to block it but that was exactly what the god wanted and his other hand, with a knife, was ready to hit the mortal in the defenseless face._

_He stopped the knife when it was only one inch from Stark's throat and at the same moment, the armored hand of the mortal brightened, aiming at his face. They were so closed they could almost see their reflections in each other eyes._

"_One hit of your armor will not be enough to kill me." Loki smiled and brought the knife closer to the mortal's face, brushing his skin with the blade. "You, on the other side, are so frail that I could end your life with just this knife."_

_The Avenger didn't falter._

"_I'm pretty sure my suit's faster than your hand."_

_Loki could have tried to see if it was the truth but he really didn't want to kill him._

_For just one moment, he had the fleeting impulse to close the distance between them and kiss him, just to see what Stark's reaction would have been, to see if he could silence the too talkative mortal with his own lips._

_And in the same moment, he had the feeling that Stark was thinking the same._

* * *

Someone was following him.

Someone who was not close enough to be a direct threat but Loki was perceiving his presence, the way the pursuer was following his steps with the calm that belonged to the hunters who knew they would reach their prey, sooner or later.

It was an unpleasant sensation which dampened the euphoria for the last fight. He knew he had a lot of enemies in all of the Nine Realms but only a few of them should have been able to recognize his tracks, when he traveled through the hidden path along Yggdrasil's branches with a concealment spell capable of fooling even Heimdall.

He stopped in the darkness between two Realms and closed his eyes, trying to locate his pursuer. He felt his presence, which again was too far to be recognizable. His pursuer was at the thresholds of Asgard, like he didn't dare to enter the All-Father's domain. So, he was someone powerful enough to follow him but not foolish enough to defy Odin.

He strengthened his grip on the scepter.

After he had chosen to stop fighting against the Firstborns, he hadn't used the usual cautiousness in erasing the traces of his presence, maybe because in truth, he wanted Odin to notice how powerful he had been. He shouldn't have allowed himself such recklessness but still, part of him wanted to trace down his pursuer and face him.

It was a tempting thought because in doing so, he could test the improvement of his power. And he was terribly curious, because now his scepter was much more powerful than the one Thanos had given to him. He brushed against the blue gem which was embedded in his weapon, feeling it pulsating as a response to his touch. It was warm, filled with energy. And he had the other blue pearl, smaller but still powerful, hidden away with the Casket and his other important artifacts as an emergency source of energy.

Even if his enemies managed to take his scepter away from him and to exhaust his magic, he still wouldn't be defenseless.

After having cast a stronger spell to conceal his presence, he reached for his pursuer with his mind. He just brushes his enemy's conscience but it was enough. Loki froze, while his mind was being invaded by memories about his fall, about the Chitauri's torture, about black and twisted monsters, about cruel laughter and a murmur which was a half a threat.

_We will find you, fallen prince. We will found you and you will crawl and beg us to give you a quick death._

His lips twitched in a grimace which showed his teeth. It was difficult to breathe properly, his body was tense and even if he managed to draw his mind back before that beast noticed him, he still called for his magic to cover his body with an invisible shield.

His pursuer was The Other. Thanos' most trusted slave. And if the Mad Titan managed to catch him, even all of his magic wouldn't be enough to save him.

He snarled against the threat, knowing that Thanos had sent his men to look for him and bring him in chains at his feet to suffer a fate worse than death. He knew Thanos wanted to punish him. But he didn't think his men would be so close.

His hatred arose, sudden and overwhelming. He despised the feeling of being helpless, of being _mortal_ against a too powerful enemy who could end his existence with only a movement of his hands. It was nauseating even now, that he could feel it again only through his memories.

For a moment, the urge to hit and kill and destroy was so intense he was about to reach The Other and see if he could get his revenge for all the torture he had endured under his care. But it would be too dangerous to face him when he could avoid him and disappear.

He erased his last traces, then he opened a portal for Midgard and sent one of his illusions to follow a wrong path. He was going to create a false trace, before teleporting to his house. And there, he would find someone, a _mortal_, a being who was truly helpless – and thinking about Stark and his refusal to speak, the rage in his chest took a more threatening shade.

* * *

_Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think about this chapter. And next chapter will be centred on Loki and Tony again._


	16. Chapter 15: A taste of ice

_Hi, I'm so sorry it took me almost a month to update my story. Fact is, I was really busy in RL, plus my pc tried to die on me and I had to replace some parts. Now it hopefully should work better._

_Anyway, I hope this new chapter won't disappoint you. Thank you so much for all your feedbacks and especially your comments, I love them! And special thanks go to my beta Sara/cara-tanaka, I don't know what I would do without her help._

_Guest1__: Thank you, I'm glad you appreciate the last chapter._

_Guest2__: You're right, the things are turning bad for Tony and he didn't even do anything. I'm glad you like the almost kissing scene, I hope you'll appreciate this chapter too. Thank you very much for your comment!_

_Asa-kuuki__: Thank you, I'm glad you're interested in my story! Sadly the update took a lot more than I hoped but now you can see what Loki is going to do. And about the future of those two, you just have to wait a little more :)_

* * *

**Chapter 15: A taste of ice**

Tony spent the hours in solitude eating, showering and exploring the rooms again to see if by chance Loki had changed something or had brought some other things in his house. He didn't find anything new, so in the end he sat on the floor in the same place where he had watched the god during the night before and resigned himself to wait for his return.

His gaze rose when Loki appeared in his bedroom in a bright green light.

When Loki's eyes shifted to him, Tony suppressed the urge to stand up, even if remaining seated made him feel more vulnerable.

"No surprise attacks? No fleeting attempts?". The soft voice of the god sounded even more threatening than a growl. Loki himself seemed like a predator trying to seduce his prey before killing it mercilessly. "I was expecting better from you, Stark."

Tony didn't react; it was like he hadn't even heard his words. His eyes returned to the floor while he tried to ignore the god and his own thoughts. It was better not to think. It was better to be lulled in a voiceless nothing, where there weren't any thoughts or memories that could hurt him. The Fibonacci sequence was filling his mind and he was silently articulating each number with a firm voice he hadn't allowed himself to use outside his head since his defeat against Schmidt.

He didn't have the alcohol to mitigate his pain and dull his senses but he still had math.

He was almost in a peaceful state of mind but suddenly the god's pale and slender fingers were on him. Tony found himself lifted and slammed against the wall, Loki's right hand on his throat, squeezing his windpipe and his own feet were barely touching the floor. He grabbed the god's arm out of pure instinct, trying to loosen his grasp so that he could breathe. Loki allowed him to take a couple of difficult wheezes but didn't release him.

Tony struggled to breathe properly but his throat ached, his lungs burned and he wondered if it wouldn't be easier to not fight and to let Loki kill him.

He knew he couldn't avoid death if that was what the god had in store for him. But he could die fighting. Even if he hadn't received the training Natasha and Clint had, he knew where to hit to hurt an enemy.

Loki was wearing his armor and was too close, so it would be difficult to knee him in the balls but his nose and eyes were defenseless. Even in this situation and against a god, Tony could fight and maybe manage to hit him once or twice before being slayed.

But he didn't do anything.

He was trying to start again with the Fibonacci sequence before the lack of air made him unconscious, when he felt the Loki's ragged breath on his face.

Only then he realized the god's condition. Loki wasn't hurt but his usual composure and control were gone, replaced by a strange tautness which seemed like a prelude to a rage fit. He was almost trembling because of his desire to kill and to spill blood and his face was paper white. But the most threatening thing about Loki, were his eyes. They seemed like they were haunted by shadows darker than a starless night, darker than the ones Tony had managed to see before he had been thrown out the window.

And Tony recognized immediately the emotion hidden beneath the furious green of Loki's gaze: it was the same mix of anger and desperation Tony had felt countless times during his life, when he couldn't control the situation anymore, when being Tony Stark was simply too much to bear so he took the first drink he could grab and drank himself to sleep. But Loki wasn't like him. When Loki was desperate, when he was furious, he didn't drink until he passed out. Loki killed.

For a moment, Tony strengthened his hold on the god's arm. Then he lowered his hands and stopped fighting.

_Soon, it will all be over_, he thought, with more relief than regrets.

Loki made a grimace. A second later, he pulled him closer before slamming him again against the wall, harder than the first time.

"Are you so pathetic that you are not even able to fight for your life?" he hissed while Tony wondered what would be the best for him, to abandon himself to oblivion or to struggle to breathe in order to remain conscious.

He barely managed to focus on Loki's face. In his eyes, he recognized the usual dangerous irritation the god had been showing him when Tony refused to speak. But there was also a glimpse of disappointment which surprised him. It lasted only one moment, before the rage took possession of the god's lineaments.

"What has changed you so much?" Loki asked him, easing his grip to just let him take a strained breath.

Tony lowered his gaze, focusing on the bed behind the god, without answering. The tightening of the grip on his neck let him know that Loki didn't like his silence and soon he found himself with his chin forcefully lifted so that he couldn't avoid meeting his gaze.

"What is happening to you, Stark? Can you not look at me?" The poisonous hiss of the god's voice was followed by a hard shake. "Do you think I am not worthy of your attention?"

Again, Tony refused to answer and shifted his gaze, despite knowing the god would only became angrier. _In the end, Loki was a full-tilt diva, he wanted flowers, he wanted parades, he wanted a monument built to the skies with his name plastered... –_ _and it seemed to him like an entire life had passed since that one tragicomic moment when analyzing a supervillain's mind had been like staring at himself in the mirror._

But now, Tony had nothing to say to him and if the god's green eyes were looking for an enemy, they were looking in vain because Tony was empty.

When he heard Loki breathing like he was growling, he readied himself to bear his rage. With his gaze still focused on the distant wall, he tensed but it wasn't the sharp pain he was expecting what he felt, nor was it the snap of his own neck.

He held his breath, every thought vanished from his mind now that he could feel the god's lips on his own.

Loki was kissing him.

His heart began pounding against his Arc Reactor, while the surprise caused by the god's act made him remain still like a stone. And Tony wasn't shocked because he was being kissed by a man, since he had had his fair share of male lovers when the female ones bored him. He was shocked because the man kissing him was Loki. His enemy, the bag-full-of-cats-crazy god he had been fighting during the last year.

Maybe this was just Loki's new way to humiliate him and to threaten him but it wasn't a really violent kiss.

He pressed himself against the wall, in a vain attempt to escape the contact with the god, but he himself didn't know what to do and what he wanted. A part of him needed to shove Loki away, another part, the most indifferent one, suggested him to close his eyes and to remain still, to bear what the god wanted from him, waiting for the end. And then, there was the smallest part of him that yearned for some kind of gentle touch after weeks of torture and guilt and self-contempt.

He was still too shocked and confused to move when Loki released his throat to grab his hair trapping Tony against his lips. And Tony's body knew sex, it was accustomed to react to physical contact even when his mind was too far away because of the alcohol or the exhaustion: before the Avenger could think, he opened his lips when he felt Loki's tongue and allowed the god to deepen the kiss.

Loki tasted like mint and ice and winter. It was Tony's last thought before the god interrupted the kiss to lower his mouth on his neck, biting him where there were the signs of his own fingers.

Tony gasped, in what was a half protest and a half surprise. Then Loki became gentler, shifting on his skin with little bites that made him shiver, and Tony could feel himself react to this contact that reminded him how many days he spent without having sex.

Loki must have realized it too since Tony could feel him grinning against his skin. A moment later, the god was palming his crotch, where he was getting hard in spite of the anguished thoughts that were filling his mind. He couldn't muffle a groan of pleasure and Loki laughed, predatory and dangerous, when he began stroking him through his pants.

"Tell me what you want, Stark." the god purred, before gently biting his jaw. "Talk to me."

And all his thoughts, that had been frozen because of his astonishment, filled his mind in a wave of self-loathing, desperation, suspicion and lust.

_Loki was his enemy but he wasn't a hero anymore and didn't have a dignity to defend, and all was too good – the kisses, the bites, the hand on his already hard length, Loki's cold breath against his own burning skin, the perceptions that allowed him to think about nothing. But he didn't deserve such a relief, he had to escape from the god and to hunch down on the floor, waiting to die._

He balled his hands into fists.

It was too much.

Too many emotions, too many sensations to bear while he was still so broken.

With a strength he didn't know he possessed, he shoved Loki away, managing to slip through the god and the wall.

For one moment, Loki looked surprised, then his eyes showed a dangerous anger.

"Maybe I should remind you of your place." he hissed. He lifted one of his hands and the chains appeared from the floor like the night before, enveloping Tony's wrists and dragging him down. This time, however, the chains were too short to allow Tony to stand so he couldn't do anything but sit on the floor.

There had been a day, when he was still Iron Man and he had been ready to shoot Loki in the face while the god had had a dagger against his neck, when he had wondered how kissing Loki would be.

Now, chained to the floor, with the throat that hurt at every breath and the ice-minted taste of Loki on his tongue, he wondered if it still mattered.


	17. Chapter 16: Just a boring pet

_Thank you so much for your comments, the favs and the follows! I didn't expect so many reviews, so I've tried to update as soon as I could. It's a short chapter, but I'm already translating the next one, so I should be able to update again early in the next week. Special thanks go as always to Sara/cara-tanaka, my wonderful beta._

_Guest:__ I'm sorry the real action didn't concretize. It wouldn't be really consensual if Tony gave up like that, since he's still broken, so I preferred to wait for him to heal before he and Loki did something. And you're right, Loki's patience is going to disappear soon, as you can see in this chapter (Loki's PoV, as you wanted :) ). We're coming close to the explanation about what happened to Tony, in a few chapters you'll know everything. Thank you so much for your long comment and compliments, you're too kind and I'm really glad you like my story!_

_I hope you'll enjoy this new chapter._

**Chapter 16: Just a boring pet**

_It was during the second battle against the Avengers, that he found Stark interesting enough to have him sometimes on his mind, even when they weren't fighting against each other._

_The mortal was the first of his group of that so called heroes to catch up with him. Loki was sitting on a tree's branch in the same park he had landed after his escape from Asgard. He had been bored so he had animated some of the trees, finding it amusing to create some chaos just for the sake of it. _

_This time he didn't want to move war against Midgard, he was just having some fun and wanted to show that he was back and the Avengers hadn't really erased the threat of his presence._

_One day, when Thanos would be no more, he would have his revenge against those puny mortals that had dared to defy him. He would kill them mercilessly, in the cruelest and most amusing way his mind could imagine. But for now, he was fine just like this, creating some panic in a too peaceful city._

_He had just sent two trees against a group of astonished policemen when Stark had found him._

_All around himself, he could hear the terrified screams of the Midgardians, the crash of the branches hitting the buildings nearby, the heavy, crackling steps of his new and temporary minions._

_After his fall, the thing with the Chitauri and the days spent hidden on Midgard to heal from the injuries sustained during his escape from Asgard, he had forgotten how much more pleasurable it was to use magic just for his brand of fun._

_Avoiding a couple of trees, Stark appeared in front of him._

"_I thought that after your shameful defeat, you would have known better than to attack the Earth again"._

_He gifted him a toothy smile._

"_Attack? Why, I'm here just to do some sightseeing"._

_When Stark suddenly lifted a hand, he was ready: the blast hit his illusion while he took advantage of the mortal giving his back to his real self to attack him with a stab of magic._

_Stark took the hit well and attacked him again with two blasts of white energy from his gloved hands._

"_You should hurry with your evil-lord monologue because the big guy will be here in a few minutes"._

_Loki tried to hit him with his scepter after having teleported to his side to avoid the blasts._

"_The big guy?"._

_Stark blocked his scepter with his arm._

"_Big green monster, terrifying strength, he destroyed an entire floor of my tower with your face... does it ring a bell?"._

"_It just reminds me not to throw you out the window when I want to get rid of you", he answered, before slamming the mortal against one of the motionless trees._

_With the trees on his side and his magic at full power, he only needed a couple of minutes to subdue the mortal. He stepped slowly towards him, the smile still on his face. Stark was on the ground, unable to stand. Loki's last attacks had destroyed the contraptions on his foot which allowed the mortal to fly and even his helmet was damaged and it missed the frontal part._

"_On your knees already? Without any dates?", he said smirking at the defeated Avenger, remembering the words Stark had told him during their last fight._

_Stark wiped some blood off his face with the gloved hand. Then, he looked at him in the same way he had done when he was _threatening_ him and offering him a drink._

"_Actually, I'm on my butt"._

_It happened then, with the mortal at his feet, panting from the pain and the effort but with the challenging stare still clear in his eyes. Loki realized he didn't really want to kill him now. He restrained his magic, which had been ready to strike for the last time, and lowered the scepter._

_This time, he wasn't sparing Stark's life because he was too wounded and exhausted to kill him and then teleporting before the arrival of agents Barton and Romanoff, like it had happened during their last fight. This time, he was sparing him because Stark made him curious in his regards. The way he retorted at every gibe and his ironical replies were amusing and he was one of the fewest people that could and would challenge Loki verbally other than physically._

_Loki didn't forget his strange immunity to Thanos' scepter either, which was another point of interest._

_And he had to admit that Stark's wit was remarkable even for a god._

_He was the only Midgardian Avenger who had really caught his attention. Banner was a craven, unable to use the monster hidden inside his body to obtain a power which was perfectly within his grasp. Thor and Rogers were oafish and idealistic, they didn't know the darkest parts of life, the deepest abyss where someone's mind could be buried – "no, Loki", and the dark had swallowed him whole without spiting him out, marking him forever while he fell and fell and fell..._

_Barton and Romanoff were assassins, they weren't heroes. They were paid on someone's blood and death and didn't believe in foolish honor or childish principles. But they were soldiers, simple pawns who obeyed to someone higher in ranks than them, and didn't deserve his full attention._

_Stark was different from everyone of them. Despite being a mortal, he was _interesting_. And before killing him, Loki would manage to know him, to know all his secrets, all the mysteries hidden behind his armor. And then, he would break him, enjoying the sight of the arrogant mortal bent to his will and utterly defeated._

* * *

The rustle of the old pages was the only sound in the room. His eyes browsed fast line after line, searching for the spell he needed to complete the new defense for his house. Even if he hadn't opened that book for a century, he knew the runes he was looking for were somewhere in those pages.

He had already spent a couple of hours sitting on the bed with one of the heavy books on his legs but he didn't feel the need to stretch his muscles and to take a break. His lifelong studies of sorcery had gotten him used to spending even days without moving, while reading those ancient tomes.

He didn't need to lift his gaze from the book to feel Stark's eyes focused on him.

The delight in having found the Avenger where he had obtained the Tesseract shard, had long vanished. Stark was already broken, he was nothing like the arrogant and interesting enemy he had enjoyed defeating in the past. Now, he was just a mute shadow who kept his eyes on the floor and didn't even try to attack him or to escape. He didn't speak, which was unbelievable, since Loki hadn't thought it possible for the mortal to keep his mouth closed even if his life depended on it.

He glanced at him. As soon as he met his gaze, the mortal lowered his eyes.

It was irritating, because no one should have been able to break one of his toys.

Two days ago, Loki had been so frustrated with his prisoner that he had almost killed him. When he had kissed Stark, both to suppress his urge to end his life and because of an instinctive impulse, the mortal had showed a satisfying reaction.

It had been just for a few seconds, but when Stark had refused him, Loki had seen into his eyes a storm of emotions instead of the usual resignation. The mortal was still there, somewhere, Loki just had to learn how to reach him.

He hadn't been able to make him talk, though, and that was what frustrated him the most: even if his voice was annoying and disrespectful, it was the particular trait that had made the mortal worthy of his attention. If Stark remained silent, he wouldn't have any reasons to keep him alive.

He gave him one last glance, before returning to his book. After a few more pages, he found what he was looking for: a powerful spell which would strengthen his house's defenses, keeping it safe and completely unreachable from the Midgardians and maybe even from Thanos.

During the last few days, he had been too busy renewing and improving his defenses, but now he had already cast the protective spells upon every wall and room. H had just to write the runes of this last spell, and then he wouldn't have any other distractions.

Then, he would have all the time he wanted to force the mortal to talk and to decide to kill him or to play with him a little more.


	18. Chapter 17: The hard way

Thank you so much for the comments, the favs and the follows, I love knowing what you think about my story! And special thanks go as always to my beta Sara/cara-tanaka, for her help and her everlasting patience. Also, thanks a lot to Toki Asamia, who was so kind to review each of my chapters in one or two days.

Margaret: If you mean that my story will have some sexual parts and will focalize on the relationship between Loki and Tony and the hurt/comfort, then yes, I fear it will be a plot you wouldn't like to read. Loki will still be a sort of evil mastermind (well, not as evil as he is chaotic), but the FrostIron thematic will be predominant, at least for a while. Anyway, thanks for your comment.

Guest: Thank you so much for your comments and your compliments, I'm glad you liked the last chapter! Loki's patience is wearing thin, so he'll soon do what he can to know what happened to Tony. But first he wants to make him talk. Hugs and kisses for you, you really are too kind!

**ADDICTIONAL SPOILER WARNING:** Prelude to a non consensual sexual interaction. For a more detailed warning, please read the notes at the end of the chapter.

* * *

**Chapter 17: The hard way**

He was once again on his knees on the cold floor of the living room. Loki was so angry that Tony could feel his gaze burning even without looking at him.

It was a strange thing because during the last few days, Loki had barely looked at him, spending all of his time reading or disappearing into the room Tony wasn't allowed to enter. Usually, the god sat on his bed with one heavy tome on his legs, remaining motionless for hours. He only moved one hand to change pages but he didn't stretch, he didn't change position, he didn't take a break to have something to eat or to drink.

Some other times, Loki materialized an old, black journal where he took quick notes that made Tony more curious than he would like to admit to himself.

During the rest of the time, the god was away, probably plotting one of his evil schemes.

Despite his threats, no interrogation had taken place. He didn't know if Loki was ignoring him because he was too busy and had other priorities or if the god had lost interest in him but, apart from some sporadic glances, it seemed like the god didn't even notice his presence.

And now that Loki appeared indifferent in his regards, thinking about the kiss, the god's lips pressed against his own, Loki's hand on his crotch, making him aroused and hard like it was one new, sweet way to torment him, seemed absurd. He almost believed it had never happened.

Now, he was living in a strangely calm routine, which was insane for a prisoner. As soon as Loki freed him from the chain, he went to the bathroom to have a long, warm shower. Then, he went to the kitchen to prepare some breakfast which he ate alone. He washed the dishes to occupy the time and to avoid thinking and he spent the rest of the day focusing on some math problems, on Jarvis and the way to improve his beloved AI, on whichever project wasn't related to the suit.

A couple of times, when the boredom threatened to awaken all the memories he wanted to escape from, he picked up one of the god's ancient books and tried to read it but it was written in an unknown alphabet.

After no more than a minute, he put the book exactly where he had found it because he didn't think Loki would react well if he discovered that his captive had pried around his spell books. However, a part of him was certain Loki would know it anyway.

If the god was in the house, Tony studied him while he was reading, sitting on the floor in silence and trying not to catch his attention. During one of these occasions, his need for some alcohol was so strong that he had almost talked to him, begging for a bottle of scotch, of whisky, of vodka – he didn't really care what kind of drink, he would accept everything that would silence his own thoughts. But in the end, he hadn't been able to bring himself to speak, so he had remained silent once more, ignoring his need and bowing his head until he stared at the floor, hoping to disappear in the nothing where his voice had drowned.

Despite everything, he managed to sleep better chained to the floor in the god's bedroom than when he had been Schmidt's prisoner. He hadn't had anymore panic attacks, maybe because his nightmares were less terrifying than usual. However, the night before he had dreamed about eyes too green which made him feel naked and lips pressed against his own and in the morning he had woken with a light taste of ice and mint in his mouth.

Contrary to the last couple of days, this morning Loki had stayed in the house even after Tony had showered. He had found the god in his bedroom, with one of the heavy tomes on his legs, so intent in reading it that it had seemed like he hadn't even noticed him.

Loki had been reading for hours before standing up, with a graceful movement nobody who had been still for such a long time should have been able to perform. Tony had stood too.

Following the god at a short distance, he had watched him enter room after room while, from his fingers, green streams of magic appeared. The god had then made some strange signs into the air next to the front door and the windows, and Tony had realized that it was some kind of protective spell. The energy coming from the god had been so intense that the air had seemed like it was made by pure electricity.

For a moment, Tony had wished he had some of his electronic equipments to analyze the magic but soon this last sparkle of interest died in his usual apathy.

A moment later, Loki had appeared right in front of him. Without a word, he had grabbed his hair, forcing him to kneel at his feet. Tony hadn't even tried to rebel and now he was still on the floor, while the god was towering on him, threatening and dangerous even without his armor, with a disappointed expression on his face.

"You know, I begin to find you boring, mortal".

Tony didn't lift his gaze, tensing at the god's words but remaining still. Loki found him boring. After all his talking about vengeance and the threats, after the humiliation of making him sleep chained to the floor like he were an animal, Loki didn't seem like he was pleased to see him already broken. But Tony had nothing to say, nothing to reply to his irritation; even his ironical remarks, a distinctive Tony Stark trademark, had deserted him because he didn't care anymore about anything.

As soon as he closed his eyes, he could see the bodies all around himself – the suit too heavy, trapped by his enemies' weapons or maybe by his own horror; the laughter, the voices, _you're unworthy, you little heartless man who pretends to be a hero_ – and he felt like a part of him hadn't survived the fight.

Loki's hand grabbed his hair, pulling mercilessly to have his attention.

"Do you have anything to say, Stark?".

Tony remained still and silent.

Maybe this time Loki would kill him and the idea didn't really bother him. It sounded absurd but Tony had loved his life, despite being so self-destructive. Even if he always found new ways to hurt himself, such as drinking way too much, flirting with the danger and deciding to be a superhero, he feared death. Or to be fair, he had feared death before Schmidt captured him.

In Afghanistan he had been scared to die every day. When Obadiah had taken his Arc Reactor from his chest, he had almost panicked. And he had truly been afraid when he was slowly dying with the palladium poisoning.

But now, thinking about his imminent death, he felt nothing.

A hard tug on his hair made him whimper, more because of the surprise than because of the pain. Then, he found himself close to the god, his eyes at the level of Loki's crotch and he understood immediately what was going to happen.

"If you are not going to use your mouth to talk, then you shall use it for another, more useful purpose", Loki hissed, giving a second, hard tug on his hair, while his free hand went to open his black leather pants.

This time, Tony tensed until he almost felt his muscles snap. He lifted his gaze towards the god's face, horrified by what Loki wanted him to do. He deserved torture and humiliation but this was too much. He couldn't accept it, he wasn't so broken to let the god use him like he were a whore.

"No!", he screamed, shoving the god back with all of his strength.

His head hurt where Loki had tore off a lock of his hair and his voice sounded hoarse because of the disuse, to the point that he was surprised he managed to say a word instead of an inarticulate sound but he didn't mind.

What mattered now, was that he was free from the god's grasp and could put some distance between them. Breathing too fast, he lifted his gaze, searching for Loki's eyes, with a knot of anguish in the place of his stomach while he wondered how the god would react to his little rebellion. He was astonished to see a grin instead of a furious expression.

While he was still deciding what to do, if to stand up and face the god or to run from him, Loki took a step closer.

"Welcome back, Stark". A dark satisfaction appeared on the god's face, together with his psychopathic smile. "It seems like the mortal was not able to completely break you".

* * *

**Warning:** Prelude to a non consensual blowjob (for the details: it doesn't happen, but it seems like Loki is about to force Tony to suck him off).


End file.
